Countywide : Woman Sentenced in Welfare Fraud

A 24-year-old woman who collected Ventura County welfare payments while living in Cancun, Mexico, was sentenced Tuesday to a year in Ventura County Jail.

It was the maximum sentence possible for Ileana E. Lizama after Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. promised not to impose a prison term in exchange for a guilty plea in September.

Lizama, a Mexican national, pleaded guilty to one count of welfare fraud and two counts of perjury stemming from her receipt of nearly $9,000 in benefits between November, 1991, and September, 1992.

Investigators said Lizama, the wife of a Cancun cabdriver, applied for welfare for herself and her two children during a brief stay in Ventura County last November. After returning to Cancun, she continued to receive checks that were forwarded from an Ojai address. Lizama was arrested in September during a meeting with county officials to discuss her benefits.

Deputy Public Defender Steve P. Lipson urged Campbell not to impose the one-year term, which had been recommended by the Probation Department. “I don’t see this as any different from any other welfare fraud case,” Lipson said.

He said Lizama was being singled out because she lived in Cancun, “which raises images of windsurfing and lying on the beach at a resort.” On the contrary, he said, Lizama was living a meager existence in a poor section of the Mexican city.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott D. Hendrickson argued that a year in jail was warranted for the welfare fraud case, which he described as “the most serious in this county in a long time.”

The judge ordered Lizama to report to jail Dec. 1. She is free on $20,000 bail.