A years-long scheme to collect thousands in public assistance benefits ended with a guilty verdict for a Schenectady County woman, prosecutors announced on Monday, June 1.<\/p>\n
Sonia Rajpaul, 31, of Rotterdam, was convicted by a Schenectady County jury on May 22 following a five-day trial, according to Schenectady County District Attorney Robert M. Carney.<\/p>\n
Rajpaul was found guilty of one count of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, one count of Welfare Fraud in the Third Degree, two counts of Perjury in the First Degree, and 10 counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Evidence presented at trial showed Rajpaul repeatedly misrepresented her income and household composition while receiving SNAP benefits and HEAP energy assistance between 2019 and 2023, according to the district attorney’s office.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Rajpaul failed to report income from her cleaning business and did not disclose that her husband lived in the household. She also failed to report his income, allowing her to receive benefits she would not have qualified for had the information been accurately disclosed, authorities said.<\/p>\n
By 2023, Rajpaul was receiving $740 per month in SNAP benefits, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Investigators executed a search warrant at the Rotterdam home Rajpaul shared with her husband and found evidence the couple lived together, including family photographs displayed throughout the residence, the district attorney’s office said. Authorities also determined the family owned a second home that was being rented out and that the rental income had not been reported.<\/p>\n
After charges were filed, prosecutors said Rajpaul testified before a Schenectady County grand jury on May 2, 2024, and falsely claimed she did not share bank accounts with her husband, did not have access to his income, and never received money from their jointly owned cleaning business. Trial evidence showed the couple shared three joint bank accounts and that Rajpaul signed and received checks connected to the business, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
The district attorney’s office said Rajpaul fraudulently obtained $28,323.22 in SNAP and HEAP benefits.<\/p>\n
She is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, Aug. 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A years-long scheme to collect thousands in public assistance benefits ended with a guilty verdict for a Schenectady…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14402,14401,12264,14400,41,9767,14398,14399],"class_list":["post-18414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rotterdam","tag-cleaning-business","tag-heap","tag-prosecutors","tag-public-assistance-benefits","tag-rotterdam","tag-schenectady-county","tag-snap","tag-sonia-rajpaul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/netherlands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}