J&W Aseda Marketplace, Worcester store tied to $3.6M food stamp fraud, accused of selling uninspected meat

WORCESTER – J&W Aseda Marketplace, the Main Street store that authorities said in 2016 had perpetrated the largest food stamp fraud case in state history, has been selling uninspected meats, prosecutors alleged Thursday.

According to a news release from Andrew E. Lelling, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, the 753 Main St. business will face “strict penalties” if it continues to sell meat that has not been inspected by federal authorities.

The market had been warned four times since 2013 about food safety violations, the release states, and has now agreed to a consent decree vowing not to violate food safety laws.

According to Mr. Lelling’s office, the government filed a civil lawsuit against the market after surveillance by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed it had sold meat products not inspected by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The market also “failed to maintain appropriate business records concerning the purchase and sale of these products,” the government wrote.

Court records show the offending products include 18 pounds of beef tripe, 18 pounds of smoked catfish, 50 pounds of goat meat and 6 pounds of meat pies.

The goat meat was purchased for resale from Compare Foods in Worcester, the documents state, while the meat pies came from Nana Yaa in Worcester. J&W declined to tell the USDA where it got the beef tripe.

According to the release, the consent decree is “awaiting judicial approval.” Under it, USDA investigators “will continue to have broad access to the premises” to ensure no laws are broken.

“The sale of uninspected meat products is a significant health risk to consumers,” Mr. Lelling said in the news release.

The owners of the business, Vida Causey and Wilton Causey, will face “significant financial penalties” for any further violations, the government said.

Vida Causey was sentenced to a year in federal prison in July 2016 after she pleaded guilty to committing $3.6 million in food stamp fraud.

The scheme involved buying food stamps for 50 cents on the dollar while charging the government the full value of the benefit. In a four-year period, Mrs. Causey rang through more than $3.6 million worth of benefits from J&W Aseda, a three-aisle store in Main South.

In addition to prison time, a $3.5 million judgment was entered against Ms. Causey in 2017. At that time, the government had seized about $10,092 from the store, records show.

Records show Ms. Causey is currently fighting a motion for $3.5 million in restitution the government filed last year.

Her lawyer, Edward P. Ryan Jr., argued in court paperwork that there “is no victim who has suffered an actual pecuniary loss as required by the statute.”

Mr. Ryan argued that's because the people who traded their EBT benefits for half their worth acquired those benefits legally. It stands to reason, he argued, that the government would have paid out the same amount of benefits had they been redeemed legally, resulting in no loss.

Mr. Ryan was appointed to represent Ms. Causey for the restitution issue after she requested a court-appointed lawyer in a June 2018 letter to U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman.

“After my incarceration my family and I are struggling financially,” she wrote. “Ever since I got home everything [has] been in a mess bills piling up with business going down.”