A former Massachusetts state official is facing federal charges after prosecutors say he collected food assistance benefits while hiding a six-figure salary, a sizable bank balance and two live-in household members, including a fiancée who earned additional income. Lamar Cook allegedly received about $546 per month in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits despite having an $8,800 bank balance and a state salary of $130,227 a year.
According to WCVB, federal prosecutors say Cook falsely reported zero income and less than $100 in his bank account when he applied for the benefits in April. He also allegedly failed to disclose that his fiancée and her mother lived with him at his Springfield residence, and that his fiancée earned more than $80,000 a year, the station reported.
Investigators allege the SNAP money Cook received was spent at grocery and retail stores and during a trip to Florida in July 2026, the station reported. The case was first brought to light through reporting by the Boston Herald, which has been examining spending and oversight issues at the state's Department of Transitional Assistance.
A Six-Figure Salary and a Hidden Household
The gap between Cook's reported circumstances and his actual finances sits at the center of the federal case. Per the same WCVB account, Cook allegedly had $8,800 in his bank account but reported less than $100, meaning his balance was more than 88 times $100, and his household included two additional adults whose presence and income were not disclosed on his application.
SNAP eligibility generally considers household income, though most Massachusetts households are not subject to an asset test, and the dossier of allegations against Cook — zero reported income against an actual salary exceeding $130,000, an undisclosed fiancée earning over $80,000, and an unreported second adult in the home — describes a case where the application diverged sharply from Cook's real financial picture, as laid out in the station's reporting.
Oversight Questions at the State Agency
The Department of Transitional Assistance, the state agency responsible for administering SNAP benefits to Massachusetts households, says its broader mission is to assist and empower low-income residents through cash assistance, food assistance and workforce training programs, according to the agency's own description on Mass.gov. The agency states it serves one in seven residents of the Commonwealth through those combined programs.
An annual organizational report posted on Mass.gov describes the department's SNAP-focused workforce as consisting of 676 employees, including 539 caseworkers and 137 supervisors, serving what the report calls the agency's largest caseload. The department also published a performance scorecard in February 2026 outlining its mission, according to a separate document posted on the state's website.
Federal Rules Tie Error Rates to State Costs
Separately from the Cook case, federal guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture lays out rules that could affect how much states like Massachusetts must contribute toward SNAP payment errors going forward. According to the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, a state's payment error rate determines whether it must match a percentage of benefits issued, ranging from 0% to 15%.
That matching requirement will generally begin as soon as October 1, 2027, the agency says, and states will be able to choose either their fiscal year 2025 or 2026 error rate when the obligation is calculated. The USDA separately maintains historical SNAP payment-error-rate data covering multiple years, though gaps exist for some years in the published dataset, according to the agency's error-rate tracking page.
Massachusetts payroll records compiled through the state's CTHRU open payroll system show the Department of Transitional Assistance accounted for $121.47 million in payroll in 2022, representing 1.35% of all state payroll that year, according to the CTHRU Statewide Payroll database.
What Remains Unconfirmed
The federal government's official announcement of the case, posted by the District of Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's Office, confirms that Cook was arrested and charged in connection with allegedly fraudulently obtaining SNAP benefits of more than $500 per month, but the full charging document, including the complete list of charges, was not available in the material reviewed for this report. Additional figures circulating about DTA staffing levels, overtime spending and statewide payment-error rates have not been independently verified through the primary sources examined here, and are not reported in this article pending further confirmation.
