CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The owners of several Chicago-area convenience stores, including a Chicago police officer, have been charged in federal court with scheming to defraud a low-income food program for women and children.
A 16-count indictment returned in U.S. District Court in Chicago alleges that from 2010 to 2019 the store owners and several workers schemed to fraudulently redeem checks from the Women, Infants, and Children (“WIC”) program, a federally funded initiative designed to provide a nutritious diet to moderate and low-income infants, children up to five years of age, and pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women.
The charges allege that the defendants, including Chicago Police Officer Hassan "Eric" Abdellatif, knowingly allowed customers to provide their WIC checks as payment for ineligible items at the stores, often at inflated prices. Most of the nine stores identified in the indictment redeemed millions of dollars in WIC checks.
Charged with fraud are Hassan "Eric" Abdellatif, 33, of Chicago, owner of El Milagro Mini Market and Harding Grocery in Chicago; Hamdan "Tony" Hamdan, 32, of Chicago, owner of La Villita Food Market in Chicago; Ehab Khrawish, 27, of Tinley Park, Ill., owner of Mercado La Estrella in Elgin, Ill.; Waleed "Wally" Khrawish, 34, of Melrose Park, Ill., who worked at a convenience store in Melrose Park; Alaa Hamdan, 35, of Chicago, who worked at Supermercado El Grande in Addison, Ill.; Ersely Arita-Mejia, 39, of Arlington Heights, Ill., who worked at Star Mini Market in Mt. Prospect, Ill.; Fortino Hernandez, 38, of Addison, Ill., who worked at Supermercado El Grande in Addison; Jehad Khrawish, 24, of Chicago, who worked at a convenience store in Melrose Park, Ill.; and Marisol Zavala, 29, of McHenry, Ill., who worked at a convenience store in Elgin, Ill.
According to the indictment, Officer Abdellatif has also been charged with two tax offenses for allegedly willfully failing to file two years of corporate tax returns for Harding Grocery.
Abdellatif was arraigned Wednesday and pleaded not guilty, court records show. He was released on a secured $150,000 bond.
A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department said Abdellatif has been relieved of his police powers. The Chicago Police Department declined to comment further, citing the FBI investigation.
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