Resident of Mexico Held in Welfare Case

A 24-year-old woman who moved to a Mexican resort city last year but continued to receive Ventura County welfare payments at a relative’s Ojai home will be charged today with felony fraud, authorities said.

Ileana Elizabeth Lizama, the wife of a Cancun cabdriver, is being held on $20,000 bail pending arraignment on charges that she fraudulently received about $9,000 in government aid after she and her two small children moved to Mexico in November.

“This is just about as blatant as they come,” county chief welfare investigator Milton Suttle said. “We’ve had a number of cases where the recipients have been living out of state, but this is the first where they’ve been out of country.”

Suttle said his experience and perspective date back to 1974.

A spokesman for the county public defender’s office said he could not comment on Lizama’s case because she will not be assigned an attorney until after she is arraigned at 1:30 p.m. today.

Lizama was arrested Friday in Ventura during a special eligibility meeting that she had been required to attend. Investigators had been at Los Angeles International Airport the night before when she returned to the United States on a flight from Cancun, Suttle said.

The inquiry began in August after the county crime hot line received an anonymous tip, and the information was forwarded to the welfare department, he said.

The investigation led Suttle to conclude that Lizama, who previously had lived with her mother in Los Angeles, stayed in Ventura County only long enough last November to apply for $663 a month in aid for herself and her two young children, plus $182 a month in food stamps.

For 11 months, the benefits were sent to an Ojai address that Lizama listed as her residence, but which turned out to be her sister’s home, Suttle said.

“It sounds like it was a hoax from the beginning,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott Hendrickson said.

Investigators do not yet know whether the welfare checks were cashed by Lizama in Mexico or by someone in this country and the proceeds forwarded to her, Suttle said.

Lizama’s sister, whom the chief investigator did not identify, is vacationing in Mexico and has not been questioned, Suttle said.

Lizama was allegedly able to get away with the scheme because welfare recipients are only required to appear at welfare offices in person once a year, Suttle said. One-page monthly status reports must be filed but can be mailed, he said.

A handwriting expert is examining the monthly reports to determine who filled them out. “We are not really sure yet whose handwriting is on those reports,” he said.

Routine school enrollment checks were of no help in this case because both of Lizama’s children are not old enough to go to school, he said.

Lizama was apparently a legal United States resident since she originally qualified for benefits and cleared U. S. customs last week without a problem, Suttle said.

She faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, a $5,000 fine and payment of full restitution, county prosecutors said.

“This is just another case,” Suttle said, “that shows the ingenuity of people who try to beat the system sure doesn’t stop at the border.”

He said, however, that illegal immigrants are involved in only a small percentage of Ventura County’s 1,500 welfare fraud cases each year.

Restitution is sought in almost all of those cases, with felony charges filed in only about two dozen annually, Suttle said.