The former owner of a Federal Way meat retailer pleaded guilty this month to theft and identity theft charges that stemmed from his 2014 arrest for stealing food stamp funds.
John Comoza, who previously owned John’s Meats and Seafood on Southwest 340th Street, was sentenced March 10 to one year in Pierce County Jail and was ordered to pay about $10,000 total in fines and restitution. Comoza was arrested in 2014 after investigators say he stole nearly $9,500 from at least 23 Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards that he’d never seen. He reportedly generated card numbers of cardholders he’d never met, then charged purchases from his business to the accounts associated with those numbers.
Cardholders discovered the thefts when they tried to use their cards and found their accounts emptied.
In a statement from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, Steve Lowe of DSHS’ Office of Fraud and Accountability called the scheme one of the most unusual cases of food stamp fraud he had ever seen.
“This was unique,” Lowe said. “He took the benefits as if a client had walked in and bought food from him and then he asked the federal government to reimburse him.”
Comoza was arrested in Tacoma after an investigation by the Tacoma Police Department, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Social and Health Services, which administers the EBT card program.
