Jimbo's Neighbors

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A South Florida couple accused of living a lavish lifestyle while collecting food stamps and other forms of public assistance from the state of Florida and Minnesota have been captured at Port Everglades.

Prosecutors have described Colin Chisolm, III and his wife Andrea as, “rich folks ripping off the system.”

Authorities said the Chisolm’s committed fraud by receiving public assistance while living on a $1.2 million yacht while also collecting Medicaid, food stamps and cash welfare assistance from the state of Florida, while also collecting benefits from the state of Minnesota.

In the state of Minnesota’s criminal complaint against Colin Chisolm, the state said the couple “failed to report nearly $3 million deposited in bank accounts which they owned, controlled, or used to support their lifestyle.

The Chisolms initially applied for tax-payer funded health care coverage in 2004 and when they didn’t provide verification of income, Hennepin County Human Services denied the application. The state overruled the county and the Chisolms completed the application and signed it to receive the benefits, which was based on false claims, the state of Minnesota said.

In 2005, prosecutors say the Chisolms were on taxpayer health care coverage while they negotiated to buy the million-dollar yacht. Law enforcement said the defendants made a down-payment of $220,000 in January 2005 and made monthly payments of $7,500 until a second lump sump of $157,000 was due in March 2005.

All total, Minnesota officials said the Chisolms paid $264,375 on their yacht while receiving Minnesota’s public health care.

Minnesota officials said the couple told state officials that they lived full-time in Minnesota, but starting in January 2005, the duo lived on their yacht at Turnberry Isle, where it was docked.

After the boat was repossessed in 2005 for lack of payments, both allegedly moved to Lighthouse Point and fought to get their possessions back. While still receiving Minnesota assistance, law enforcement said Colin Chisolm swore in federal court that both lived Connecticut before January 1, 2005.

When asked for an address in Connecticut, Colin Chisolm told attorneys 15 East Putnam Avenue, Greenwich, Connecticut. Investigators found out the address is a UPS Store in the city.

Minnesota authorities said that in 2007 Andrea gave birth to a son in Palm Beach and both claimed to be indigent and successfully applied for welfare from the state of Florida. The Chisolm’s benefits included cash, food support, and medical assistance, according to the criminal complaint.

A few months after the birth, Minnesota officials said the duo came back to Minnesota to apply for Minnesota benefits. The criminal complaint stated that both states were providing benefits for one year, which is against Minnesota state law.

Hennepin County again granted welfare benefits and food stamp benefits to the couple after the duo allegedly failed to report their income. Authorities said the couple “completed, signed, and submitted” 13 forms fraudulently to receive benefits.

When asked where they were living on the state forms, the couple allegedly told officials they lived with Andrea’s mother and paid her between $300 and $500 per month in rent.

However, the criminal complaint said the couple was living in two different homes on Lake Minnetonka.

The state of Minnesota said that during the public assistance collection from January 2005-April 2012, “approximately $2,630,000 was deposited into accounts which the defendants owned, controlled, managed, or had use of.”

Minnesota officials said the accounts were never accounted for on 12 separate forms.

One way Minnesota officials said the couple hid the money was to funnel money from a business of Chisolm’s along with a side business selling puppies through an account belonging to an elderly grandmother.

All total, the Chisolm’s allegedly fraudlently received $167,420.30 in public assistance from the state of Minnesota.

Both Colin and Andrea Chisolm are being held in the Broward County Jail. Colin faces a charge of fraudulently/wrongfully obtain public assistance.

If they’re convicted, the Chisholms could face up to 20 years in prison.

I hope this has a happy ending. Of course we'll continue to feed and house them.

Now....we all read this stuff..........sadly too often..........and we laugh. We do.....we laugh.

I just can't see where a government feeding and clothing citizens is a good thing. I never will. The government is just TOO inefficient at it, and rife with their own fraud and greed and corruption.

Since I retired, I've been flabbergasted as I drive around during the day and see how many folks don't work............and how many pay with SNAP at Walmart lines, and what they buy........and what is going on. It's staggering, at least to me. It's almost every worker has to support two folks, himself and someone else. I hear "jobs are hard to come by" but any fool can go to Montana or North Dakota and start work immediately, at high pay. There are STILL jobs in the classified ads. Those pages are not blank. Beggars refuse help if a work requirement is attached. It's just crazy.

I know already what I'll get told. I'll get told that I'm crazy, and that the percentage is infinitesimal, and all is right with the system.

Balderdash and Poppycock to that.

Lynn drove me to Tampa last week for a doctor appt. The orange picking season is over, so it's now strawberry season down here and the fields are being picked. The fields (just as the orange groves recently) were FULL of 100% hispanic pickers ... many of whom were actually bused in from Mexico due to a lack of workers in the area. I made a comment to Lynn that every able-bodied swinging dick that's on welfare or unemployment right now should be in those fields. It'll never happen.

So they fraudulently received $167,420.30 in public assistance for 6 years...

That's $27,000+ a year....How in the hell?

You guys overestimate the intelligence of government workers. Every time I hear "The Government ought to do Program X, it's a Good Thing" I think about all the worthless workers that I spent years dealing with from the inside, and how many it will take to implement this "good program". It got to where I felt like I was one of them. Clinton's successor actually did me a huge favor by having me fired........he did what I woke up every morning for 22 years wanting to do, and feeling like "one of them", but never had the guts to do.

Couple that with last year's fiasco with my daughter's adoption process, with workers from TWO different states (resulting finally in a Judge telling BOTH sets of workers, 14 in all in the courtroom, that "I'd fire EVERY one of you if I could"), and how incompetent, worthless, and smug about it they were........

And it's clear how this happens. It's far easier to stamp "approved" and go home to a burger than to do what is right.

The system has resulted in government having such a heavy influence in almost everything.........and they do almost nothing right......... and we pay for it. And guess what?? There's no fix. Never. It is what it is, forever.

A very good friend of mine spent her career with Work Force. Her job was to try and get people "off" welfare, mostly through educational programs (which "we" of course pay for also.) While she couldn't give details on specific cases, she would sometimes share how people "worked" the system. Now she's retired she is a little open with some of what goes on. We are just a stones throw from IL. She estimates that possibly 50% of the "benefits" paid in Des Moines County (Iowa) go into Chicago. Now - here's the fun part. When our last new/old governor was elected, he announced a *big* cut in welfare monies. So what do they cut? A number of positions in Work Force and other like programs. Not a dime from benefits to recipients. My friend took early retirement. Your tax dollars at work.

I know people hate this concept but to me its what it boils down to. There isn't a society on the planet or in history that hasn't had a level of it that simply cannot support itself. whether its through laziness, or ignorance, or purposeful, or is because of disability is up for discussion. the fact that level exists is not. In some countries, there is no social welfare net for these people and they simply die or exist in the streets. Anyone who's traveled outside our country has seen them, mainly in what we deem as third world countries. Mexico, just about any Caribbean country, South America, the Phillipines, is where I've seen them living in cardboard boxes, or in the case of urban Manila it was children living in the bushes in the median of the major streets where they could beg at traffic lights. I guess the question I have is in these places where there is no welfare or no social safety net, are the working people any better off? Do they walk around with a sense of moral superiority that they don't spend a nickel on lazy bums?

I don't bring this up to argue the point. I don't like lazy bums either. I'm just not sure there is an answer that any of us can live with, either way you decide it needs to be done. I used to think the problem with welfare was the fact that you could actually live off of it. Just redraw the line where you HAVE to work to survive. that don't work either. Its been tried. Sorry, no answers here, only more questions.



BKB

Hidey-Ho, when I closed my company, I decided I'd simply go back into the car business. To make a long story short, I ended up with the feeling I was over-qualified for the jobs I was being interviewed for (usually by 20-something managers) and the managers were actually afraid of my coming in and eventually taking their jobs away from them. (which really was my plan btw ... just wanted to get my foot in the door) Others treated me like I was a total dinosaur. One asked if I knew anything about the computer program they were on and mentioned the name. I acted totally surprised (I really was) and told him I actually helped develop that program for General Motors back in the day and had no clue they were STILL using it!

Needless to say, I couldn't find a frigging job! I then decided to go to truck driving school only because I thought it sounded interesting. I had been on unemployment for 1 1/2 months and it wasn't really paying the bills. I shelled out $6500 for truck driving school (money that I REALLY hated to spend considering I wasn't working). Once I started classes, I noticed a high percentage of the students acted like they could care less if they passed and expended very little effort to complete the course. While talking to them on lunch breaks, I learned that most of them had been sent there (all expenses paid) by Work Force. Theoretically, they'd save money in the long-run by paying these dufes to go to school and get them off the public dole. Ha! They could care less if they passed the course that I'd paid $6500 BUCKS for out of my pocket! It seems everyone knew how to "work the system" but me. :(

P-hole ... I hear you, but also don't have the answers. Until you've been in countries with no social programs and seen HONESTLY desperate people living on the streets, you can't appreciate the safety nets we have here at home. In Thailand, I spend almost as much $$$ helping "street people" that I spend on my actual vacation. There is no social security or disability. I've seen 80 year old women who'd lost an arm or a leg living on the streets begging for a bowl of rice. Here at home, when I see some "bum" begging on the streets ... I'm suspicious. I realize some are mentally disturbed and may not take advantage of social programs available to them. But when I see able-bodied people "begging" ... I look at them more as "bums". Right or wrong, it's how they strike me ... there are safety nets to help them. I'm ALWAYS suspicious of the dudes holding the cardboard signs saying they're "disabled vets". There are a ZILLION programs for them and absolutely no reason in the world for them to be on the streets and with no medical care. I have to cry bullshit!

There are folks with dignity and folks without it. I grew up on a farm to parents who were as poor as church mice but neither of my parents would ever THINK of going on the dole. I've also seen them give to people who were in need when they could barely afford to feed our family. I honestly think that when a person loses their dignity, their whole concept of working for a living being the right thing to do goes right out the window. and before you know it there's six or seven kids who'll all go on to live the exact same way. We have whole clans of them here in my state. Its sad.

BKB

Posty, you aren't going to like this, or want to hear it.

Yes, there IS an answer that some of us can live with. I think you wouldn't be able to live with it, though. I may be wrong.

I hold to 2 Thessalonians 3:10
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

If you think it's a binary decision........either we keep this current system, or we have people living in boxes, then I say that is MY personal problem with the liberal philosophy. That is patently invalid. The followup corollary to it is "Well, the best way to keep them from living in boxes is to have the GOVERNMENT solve this for us".

A) I don't care if they all live in boxes, if the solution is to tax me so the government can 'fix' that. A man's character is all I care about, not his poverty or wealth. The Lord said "The poor will be with you always". Live is not fair. Life is not easy. Besides, no one in America is living in a box that doesn't want to, and you know that too. They never will, unless they choose it.

B) It's not binary. Even if the government does the charity, it doesn't have to be either hand 'em money or let them starve. That's where I just boil over. EVERYONE can work at something. If they can work to get down to the Welfare Office to apply, they can do something. We don't make them do ANYTHING! You think that's a good system??? Truly do you??? Stop this, and let me and others help these folks........stop coercing my money via taxes to hand out in a failed system. STOP.

C) If all the above is wrong, if I am 100% off base, if you are right and I am dead wrong, I offer this..........the way we do it HAS FAILED. We have tried since the great Depression to make 'programs' to give folks money and housing and food and whatever. It isn't stopping poverty. It is increasing it. If you want to stop this poverty, if you want to truly help the POOR folks, if your heart is in the right place, then for Heaven's Sake, STOP HANDING OUT FREE STUFF. Make them earn it, and learn how to earn it, and learn that some folks are rich and some are poor. It isn't unfair that that is true. It is fair, to the max. You and I are perfect examples of fairness, but not equality. I hear "Income Equality" and i want to puke. NO chance, no reason, no purpose, to making us all equal. None.