Getting Something for Nothing

A moocher is someone who relies others constantly. A story published on kionrightnow.com details a former resident of Georgia who mooched off of the federal government and received approximately $84,000 in benefits.

The article states that a 33-year-old man received workers’ compensation payments for an on-the-job injury he sustained in 2011. He claimed that he was having difficulty standing for more than an hour and experiencing a numbing sensation from his hips down to his knees. He also reported having a hard time holding his baby daughter. Despite these complaints, he was seen playing basketball at the local gym and also exercising on an elliptical machine. (Maybe he had an opportunity to rest a bit before exercising.)

The story gets a bit more complicated when it was discovered that the man lied on an application for public assistance by stating he was not receiving unemployment benefits—when in reality, he was. (That’s called double dipping, getting something for nothing and just plain mooching.) He also was not truthful when providing income and expense information, as well as the number of persons living in his household. Obviously, he was deemed ineligible by Social Services to receive any further public assistance.

The fraudster was sentenced to serve eight years and eight months behind the bars of the county jail. He was also ordered to split restitution payments amounting to $84,350 between workers’ compensation, the Department of Social Services and the Employment Development Department. (That’s a whole lot of money to get for doing nothing.)

This man is relatively young however and can learn from his mistakes, hopefully leading to an opportunity for him to rehabilitate and lead an honest life going forward. Let’s hope his rather lengthy jail term in the county lock-up will help him to change his defrauding ways. Even though this guy has been caught and prosecuted, unfortunately he is still a moocher. The fraudster will continue to mooch off of the taxpayers while serving time in the county jail.

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