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Local News in Brief : ‘Welfare Queen’ Enters Guilty Plea

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A Pasadena woman convicted in 1983 of perpetrating a $377,000 welfare fraud, the largest in U.S. history, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a considerably smaller welfare scam involving $450.

Former “Welfare Queen” Dorothy Woods, 47, who collected the latest assistance for a teen-age son who was not living with her, then was sentenced to five years’ probation by Superior Court Judge Lillian Stevens.

The judge also sentenced her to a year in County Jail, but because Woods had already spent that much time in custody after her 1987 arrest in the smaller scam, she was allowed to remain free.

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In the earlier fraud, Woods collected welfare payments using phony names and non-existent children.

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