A Chicago-area convenience store owner is headed to federal prison for four years and has been ordered to repay more than $8.8 million after a jury found he cheated the WIC program out of benefits meant for low-income mothers and children. Hassan Abdellatif, 37, was convicted last year on multiple fraud and tax counts in a long-running scheme that prosecutors say stretched across several shops and several years, siphoning off resources meant for vulnerable families.
How the case was built
U.S. District Judge Jorge L. Alonso imposed the sentence after a federal jury convicted Abdellatif on five counts: two counts of wire fraud, one count of fraudulently obtaining government benefits, and two counts of willfully failing to file corporate tax returns, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois. Prosecutors said Abdellatif and eight other convenience store owners or workers ran the scheme from 2010 through 2018, with ten stores collectively redeeming more than $19 million in WIC checks. Along with the prison time, the court ordered Abdellatif to pay more than $8.8 million in restitution.
How prosecutors say the scheme worked
According to court filings and local reporting, Abdellatif and his co-schemers knowingly took WIC checks as payment for items that were not allowed under the program and jacked up prices to inflate reimbursement amounts. Investigators identified multiple stores linked to the operation and said two of Abdellatif's locations alone redeemed millions before authorities stepped in, as reported by FOX 32 Chicago. Prosecutors said they pieced the case together using bank records, vendor contracts and WIC redemption data.
Prosecutors' sentencing memo
In the government's sentencing memorandum, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kartik K. Raman described Abdellatif's conduct as "extremely serious, complex, and wide-ranging in scope" and stressed that "vulnerable communities are impacted when individuals steal from those programs." Those remarks and the outline of the sentence were detailed in a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois.
Defense reaction and background
Defense attorneys said they were relieved the judge came in well below the eight to ten years that federal prosecutors had requested and said they plan to appeal, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Abdellatif, who lost his job with the Chicago Police Department after his 2021 arrest, apologized in court. Judge Alonso noted his education and family support as factors weighing in his favor at sentencing.
What comes next
Eight other co-defendants have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing, and federal officials say efforts to hold vendors and related scam networks accountable are ongoing. Hoodline previously covered the jury's guilty verdict that laid out the trial record and the government's case.
