{"id":81,"date":"2025-03-12T16:53:55","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T23:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/?p=81"},"modified":"2025-03-12T17:56:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T00:56:57","slug":"kern-county-supervisors-were-not-informed-by-das-office-of-ongoing-ebt-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/?p=81","title":{"rendered":"Kern County Supervisors were not informed by DA\u2019s office of ongoing EBT theft"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>by:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\/author\/cecilia-trevino\/\">Cecilia Trevi\u00f1o<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Posted:&nbsp;Mar 10, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 A month after discovering Kern County EBT beneficiaries had been losing millions to theft, 17 News and the community, had yet to hear from county supervisors on this topic until District 3 Supervisor Jeff Flores confirmed supervisors were not made aware of the thefts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI have been notified actually through the press, in the great work of [17 News] covering these stories,\u201d said Flores.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\/kern-county-in-depth\/kern-county-in-depth-march-5-2025\/?ipid=promo-link-block1\">Kern County In Depth: Millions in EBT cash benefits stolen<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The thefts have been going on for years with millions being stolen, but law enforcement had not mentioned it to members of the Kern County Board of Supervisors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve not been notified by the DA on this specific amounts in Kern County, or EBT fraud,\u201d Flores said. \u201cI am periodically updated by the DA on a number of crime issues, enforcement issues, things in my district, but not on EBT yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Flores assumed office on January 2, 2023. EBT theft ramped up years before that, during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since July 2021, over&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\/news\/local-news\/over-400-million-stolen-in-ebt-benefits-statewide\/\">$439 million in benefits were stolen statewide<\/a>. In the last two years, around 22,000 theft reports were made in Kern County, but arrests started being made only this November, resulting in three cases involving five Romanian nationals.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\/news\/local-news\/kern-county-district-attorney-warns-of-ebt-fraud\/?ipid=promo-link-block2\">Kern County District Attorney warns of EBT fraud after millions in benefits lost<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Supervisor Flores says there are things the county can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn terms of strengthening the sanctions, that\u2019s one way my serve on the Legislative Committee for the county along with my colleagues, and we\u2019re tasked with improving, managing our legislative platform, weighing in on bills in Sacramento,\u201d Flores said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though county supervisors do not manage state programs like CalWORKs or CalFresh, Flores says it\u2019s important to talk about this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThese people are living check to check, card to card, for basic needs,\u201d he said. \u201cFor food, for medicine, for gasoline, and so it hurts the most vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by:&nbsp;Cecilia Trevi\u00f1o Posted:&nbsp;Mar 10, 2025 BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 A month after discovering Kern County EBT beneficiaries had<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bakersfield-kern-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82,"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81\/revisions\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bakomutt.com\/thebake\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}