Bernie Sanders PANICS As His Stepson's Secret $1.1M 'Charity' Gets EXPOSED On Live TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arSWsky0isI
Bernie Sanders PANICS As His Stepson's Secret $1.1M 'Charity' Gets EXPOSED On Live TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arSWsky0isI
WASHINGTON — They’re a shady bunch.
A California family that swindled $18 million in COVID-19 relief cash to splurge on various trappings — including a Harley-Davidson, diamonds and luxury homes — inspired a Senate crackdown on so-called “fraudster families.”
Two of the family members, Richard Ayvazyan and his wife, Marietta Terabelian, cut off their ankle bracelets and ditched their three children via a goodbye note to flee the US after being convicted on fraud charges, before being caught in Montenegro.
Years later, the saga inspired Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has led the Senate DOGE Caucus, to push for legislation cutting off so-called “fraud families” from government aid.
The No Cash for Cohabitating Kins of Crooks Act bars individuals who live with convicted criminals or fraudsters cut off from federal grants, loans, subawards, or reimbursements from getting that money.
The legislation includes a carve-out for spouses who live separately from someone or survivors of domestic abuse.
“Committing fraud is literally all relative for these families of felons,” Ernst told The Post. “My latest investigation found schemes sprouting from family trees across the country, with kin teaming up to rip off taxpayers to the tune of $50 million.”
The retiring Hawkeye State Republican highlighted 15 “fraudster families” she dubbed a “shady bunch” in her Squeal Award for August, which she hands out monthly to spotlight government waste, fraud and abuse.
At the top of the list was the California family.
Ayvazyan and Terabelian were later caught in Montenegro and are now serving out a 17-year and a six-year prison sentence, respectively.
The couple had teamed up with former Los Angeles-area real estate broker Tamara Dadyan — Ayvazyan’s sister-in-law — and her husband Artur Ayvazyan on the scheme.
Using stolen identities from foreign exchange students as well as elderly and dead people, they swindled $18 million in COVID-19 relief funding before being caught and convicted in 2021.
A presiding judge had slammed Ayvazyan, the ringleader, as a “cold-hearted fraudster” who “views fraud as an achievement” during sentencing.
Ernst also cited a family conviction in the infamous $250 million Feeding Our Future Fraud Scheme in Minnesota, in which Gandi Yusuf Mohamed and five family members swindled over $10 million from the Federal Child Nutrition Program.
That money had been intended to feed 5 million needy children. One of the Mohamed family members had an infamous meeting with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, which drew scrutiny from congressional Republicans.
Another case cited was the Edwards family, who were living in Florida when they concocted a bogus family ministry to seek $6 million from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic.
An elderly, supposedly dementia-stricken accountant allegedly greenlit the family’s request but gave some $8.4 million, as the Edwards claimed to have over 500 employees. Most of the family got away without being charged, including the father, Evan, a pastor who was deemed incompetent to stand trial.
The son, Josh, was sentenced to four years and three months behind bars earlier this year.
The retiring senator also highlighted a case of four “grifting grandmothers” — all of whom are sisters — who snatched some $11.5 million from the Department of Agriculture by furnishing some 200 false claims for farm aid.
They splurged on six-figure homes, fancy cars, and more. But the feds later determined the grandma thieves “in most cases, had not even attempted to farm.” They were then hit with some 115 fraud counts.
Ernst’s list also included a Washington state family that feigned caregiver roles to take $1.1 million from the Veterans Affairs Administration. The fraud revolved around Kelly Lee-Carroll, who claimed she was partially paralyzed and couldn’t walk. She had her sister and son serve as caretakers.
Ultimately, she was sentenced to 17 months and her son to 14 months for the scheme.
The senator’s list totals $50 million in stolen money by “fraudster families.” Her No Cash for Cohabitating Kins of Crooks Act is the latest piece of legislation she’s unveiled to target government waste, fraud, and abuse.
“Their next scam-ily reunion will be in the slammer,” Ernst further chided.
A California mother has blasted Berkeley officials over a massive homeless encampment near her son’s UC Berkeley housing unit — filled with rows of tents, piles of trash and debris.
“I just dropped my son off at @UCBerkeley housing and as we were approaching we saw this behind his apartments. Shame on @CityofBerkeley @CityofAlbanyCA @UCBerkeleyNews,” TV reporter and mom Lyanne Melendez wrote on X.
Melendez shared video of the sprawling encampment along the 1150 block of Harrison Street, near student housing and businesses frequented by students, less than three miles from the university’s main campus.
The California Post visited the area Wednesday and observed numerous tents and makeshift shelters packed closely together near a Tesla service facility, along with significant amounts of belongings and debris surrounding the structures.
Some areas appeared to have limited space for pedestrians, while tarps, personal belongings and other materials were spread throughout the encampment.
The scene comes as Berkeley faces mounting pressure over its handling of homeless encampments, including a long-running legal battle over the camp at the intersection of Harrison St. and Eighth St.
A federal judge last week rejected an effort by homeless advocates to indefinitely delay the city’s plans to clear that camp, while ordering Berkeley to consider potential locations where some residents could relocate.
Under the judge’s latest order, homeless advocates must submit a list of proposed alternative campsites for 23 residents by Aug. 27, which Berkeley officials must then review and either approve or reject.
The order does not require the city to accept any of the proposed sites, however, and the judge rejected advocates’ request to significantly delay the planned closure, signaling that the camp could still be cleared soon.
The city has cited sanitation, fire and public health concerns in its efforts to close the Eighth and Harrison encampment. Officials have also raised concerns about rats and an outbreak of leptospirosis linked to the infestation there.
The judge said he expects that encampment to be cleared “in short order,” although the city must continue working with some residents on disability accommodations and property storage.
The City Council has also faced criticism over cuts to health department positions and vacant police positions as the city continues to deal with homelessness.
The California Post has reached out to members of the Berkeley City Council, including Councilwoman Cecilia Lunaparra, and the mayor’s office for comment.
“I am proud of Berkeley’s status as the city that has helped more people move into temporary shelter and permanent supportive housing than any other municipality in northern Alameda County,” Lunaparra told The Post.
“We can always do more on homelessness, which is why we’re looking forward to the County of Alameda unlocking more of the hundreds of millions of Measure W dollars that are currently sitting there waiting to be spent on projects that will help bring more of our neighbors indoors with the services and resources they need to thrive,” she continued.
The Berkeley Police Department declined to comment and referred questions to the city. UC Berkeley likewise referred questions to the city. The Post has also reached out to Melendez and the Alameda City Council for further comment.
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.