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Man Charged With Stealing Tons Of Steel From Employer, Fraudulent EBT Card Use
January 21, 2015
An Escambia County man has been charged with stealing over 15 tons of steel from his employer and fraudulently using a state EBT card for years.
Barry Paul Fehr, 53, was employed at Highway Specialties, Inc. on Pine Barren Barren Road in McDavid since 2001. Between May 2011 and May 2014, Fehr sold 30,145 pounds of steel highway guardrail components in 19 transactions to Wise Recycling without permission of the company’s owner, according to an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office arrest report, receiving a total of $3,428. The investigation also found Fehr in possession of additional guardrail components owned by Highway Specialties and valued at $2,135, the report states.
Several times, Fehr represented himself in a capacity to complete jobs and accept payment without proper invoicing and receipts, investigators said. Within the past two years, deputies said Fehr and his crew installed 150 feet of guardrail on I-10 and was paid $5,200 outside the scope of Highway Specialties.
During an interview with the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, Fehr stated that he never sold property that would not have been discarded anyway upon the completion of a job.
Fehr was also accused of paying cash at one-half the face value for an individual’s State of Florida EBT card each month for the past 60 months. He then used the card as his own, fraudulently obtaining about $10,500 worth of benefits, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Fehr was charged with one felony count of a grand theft and one felony count of fraud – unauthorized user of public assistance. He was released from the Escambia County Jail on $2,500 bond.
Comments
35 Responses to “Man Charged With Stealing Tons Of Steel From Employer, Fraudulent EBT Card Use”
Has anyone heard the term “working poor”? Not everyone with an EBT card is a freeloading scumbag looking for a way to get something for nothing. There may actually be people who are looking for a job and cant get one, perhaps injured and out of work. Maybe some husband ran off and left his wife with kids to feed. Hey, life is not perfect. Yes, EBT needs to be revamped but can we please stop bashing everyone who uses it? And, NO, I have never had to rely on government services.
Now as a slap in our faces they are allowing convenience stores to sell uncooked food with ebt/snap then they will cook it for you for free! “you buy we fry” is a popular concept in these stores offering : fried chicken,fish,shrimp.po/boy’s you name it,it’s all free with ebt! we workers pay for this while we eat our budget meals and survive on what we provide for ourselves.I do sleep good at night though knowing I provided for my family with earned money and a productive kitchen garden.
Instead of EBT, why not expand WIC? You see the signs in the grocery store all the time labelling which foods are acceptable so there is already a system in place. I resent it when people use my tax dollars to buy premade gallons of red koolaid and shrek shaped green pancakes. If you must have pancakes, make them from flour, milk, and eggs like the rest of us working class folks have learned to make do.
@Mary
Thank you! For saying something truly helpful. You are absolutely right!
I doubt many of us researched how much our children would cost before we had them. That aside though, there are a number of frugal living blogs and websites that would be a boon to most anyone. Coupons are not effective for the most part as they are for packaged chemical-laden food instead of fresh produce, milk, etc. If you have a single sunny window ledge you can grow loose leaf lettuce and radishes for a salad. There are community gardens here but are located mostly downtown. We need more…if anyone is interested in loaning out a corner of their land. I do agree the commodity boxes of old contained better nutrition. EBT should not be available to buy coke, potato chips, and other junk but should be allowed to buy soap and toilet tissue.
In my opinion the EBT program is deliberately set up to encourage fraud by being a windfall cash cow to recipients. Many grocery stores have bins set up year round to collect food to stamp out hunger. If you get all the groceries you need from the food banks, it stands to reason the EBT cards are surplus. Being a good Christian person (as one commenter suggested) surely Mr. Fehr would not have taken a person’s or family’s food allowance knowing they had to starve these last 5 years. It would be more interesting to know who managed to get an EBT card to sell for 5 long years.
And if your still using tobacco, booze and illegal drugs, you should not be getting EBT services.
@REALLY?
Maybe you should have fully fully researched how much it cost to raise two kids and saved up if you could not afford it.
Why should taxpayers have to pay for the choices you made that put you in this position? If you are truly needy and I do mean truly.(If you have a TV,Cell Phone,Car,House etc.. ) you are not needy. THEN and only THEN your family,friends or church should help you out.
Then after all that is exhausted and someone is truly needy(ie.. they are medically starving) then we should have a small commodity based tax payer system to help the truly needy.
People really need to take a hard look at their responsibility.
@Nichole…that’s the point. It was probably going out of there by the truckload, and it wasn’t subtle at all.
@BT, I’m pretty sure that “steel highway guardrail components” wouldn’t fit in your pockets.
If you never took a day off in 3 years, you would have to stuff your pockets with about 30 pounds of metal every single day to steal 15 tons.
EBT abuse goes on all the time on Craigslist. Try going out there and see how many people sell their food stamps for cash. They’ll meet you at the grocery store and buy your groceries with their EBT card, and then you give them a reduced cash rate back to them.
If the abuse of the EBT cards was not enough–try this idea also. I have talked to store employees who say you can get cash back also. Swipe the card and when the screen shows the question, if the amount of the charge is correct and if you want “cash back” click on cash back and enter the amount you want. I have been told this several times. It is sad when a food program that is needed by so many people is misused by the few. (I hope it is a few)
To those who are so disgusted w/ how the EBT program is being run I agree & disagree. I agree b/c it needs to be reevaluated and revamped so that the fraud that happens can be stopped and I agree that ID should have to be shown when the card is presented. I worked at a local grocery store for 2 years & watched as time & time again people committed EBT fraud. I disagree w/ your ignorance b/c I am a single mother raising two boys by myself. I work full-time, I have an AS & a BS and I’m a veteran but I can’t seem to make ends meet. I requested assistance and was only given enough to feed maybe one of my sons for a week. I am grateful for what I receive so don’t think I’m not but I don’t understand how people can get so much more by doing nothing. The entire situation is frustrating w/ no simple solution so please before spouting off ignorance concerning what assistance people should or shouldn’t receive make sure you’ve fully researched the topic and know who & what you are talking about. Just my two cents for whatever its worth.
Janet, when growing up in the late 60’s and early 70’s my family was once on “Food Stamps” due to my fathers job loss. . Guess what we got, Government Cheese, Rice and Peanut Butter! We went downtown to the big warehouse and that is where we got to “grocery shop”. And guess what, we survived! We were very thankful for those commodities! I think we need to go back to those days!
With all the new technology why can’t they fix ebt and all credit cards with s thumb print on file? It can’t be that hard! My phone will open up with my thumb print or any other print I have stored on it. It would cut down on a lot of fraud. Just the weekend I saw on the news where people was staking ladies credit cards out of their purses and with end minutes using the cards to rack up high purchases. By not signing your credit card the cashier is so post to ask for your id but I’ve never signed mine and never been ID’ed. As far as my debit card I don’t have to enter my PIN number I can hit the credit button instead of debit and my transactions go right on through.
If they would only fix them all for a thumb print it would stop all of this type fraud.
I bet the money they would save in just 6 months from fraud would pay for every store in America to be fitted with scanners/readers to accept thumb print.
@ Janet, why do you consider it our (the working public) to furnish you with a “balanced meal ? Use your imagination and you can furnish yourself with a “balanced meal ” I support myself and my family and am not some free loader expecting the community to take care of me.
Concerning EBT Fraud:
It’s easy. ID is not required to use, because it has a PIN number on it. This means you share the PIN Number with the person who will be using it, and then off they go with it.
In this case, it appears that the EBT card owner needed cash right away, and this man gave 50 cents on the dollar to use it.
Several times as a store clerk I would notice that the name was definitely not the name of the person using the card, and ask to see the owner… it would upset the person holding the card, but a simple reply of “I do hate that I have to be a jerk about it…” would either bring the right person in the store from the car outside, or the person would leave and we wouldn’t see that person again.
I have friends who have told me that they have been approached outside grocery stores by individuals trying to sell their EBT cards for half price. I personally have not been approached. It seems that some people want the money to buy things that they cannot purchase with the card. There has to be a better way to distribute these funds. I don’t know what the answer is to this question. Maybe swiping an ID along with the card would be a step in the right direction. If the ID does not match the card then the funds would be denied. No one would be willing to sell their ID along with the card I’m sure….just a thought
What happened to innocent until proven guilty. If people were to live by these words” There is only one judge, he who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor”. I have known this man for years and yes we go to the same church, he is a good man. Remember there are always three sides to a story, yours, theirs and the truth. If anyone on here can prove they have never sinned or broke the law then by all means comment away. If not, well then you have no business bashing and judging him.
Gov’t needs to go back to the actual Food Stamp program with paper books. You should be able to buy whatever you want with that EBT card. This kindler, gentler America need to be changed back….you don’t get to have everything everyone else has…….and not work fo it….Sorry
Deacon!, that will make a good chain gang name.
Matters not if there is a name on the card. I have never seen one so I do not know.
But there are retailers that will take any EBT card presented, no questions or I.D. check required.
Especially rampant among convenience stores.
I’m sorry for my ignorance, but when you use an EBT card do you not have to show picture ID to match the name on the EBT card? Or is there not a name on the card? Would this not be one way to curb someone fraudulently using these cards/selling them for 1/2 their amount? I understand some folks may need this assitance, but it’s so easily misused!
I agree Niknak50. People have totally taken the EBT card and basically using it like you would a credit/debit card. It is sickening. We should just be provding the need ppl with food as in the past. There is really no way of taking advantage of this type of program. If a person wants to sell the cheese or rice they receive, then fine, they will go hungry. I think we have gotten way over the top of give aways. So many of these young ppl are capable of going out and working….,.
Is the person who sold the EBT card facing charges??
Just one example of a broken system, this sort of behavior is rampid throughout the system I agree with the handing out of cheese, rice, and peanut butter.
wasn’t he a deacon of a local church?
Obviously the individual who sold him the EBT card at half face value is not hungry or needy – just corrupt. He/she probably has access to several more of these cards. A slap on the hand and more EBT cards will teach this individual a lesson.
I agree with Niknak50 – EBT cards are an expensive joke played on the taxpayers by the government.
Wow!!! I remember him! He’s the Deacon of Harvest Church too!!! So wrong!!!!!
Isn’t he the deacon of harvest church in cantonment?
Niknak50 – So because a few people use EBT cards fraudulently those of us who need them to eat should have all of our cards abolished? Should our food be relegated to eating cheese, rice, peanut butter? Collective punishment is the answer? I do not think so. I am disabled. I need food stamps to eat balanced meals. I really resent how the poor are always vilified about how much “we” cost taxpayers (I pay taxes too by the way) and yet those same people who resent paying for poor people to have food on the table never utter a word about corporate welfare. It’s a shame.
A most industrious individual.
A shining example of why EBT cards should be abolished. A return to the commodity
program where needy folks were handed out cheese, rice, peanut butter, etc was just
too efficient and saved too much taxpayer money I suppose !
Wow got money for bail…