{"id":152002,"date":"2026-01-27T19:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/152002\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T19:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:20:10","slug":"fresno-baker-sentenced-to-3-years-for-snap-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/152002\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresno Baker Sentenced to 3 Years for SNAP Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">FRESNO, Calif. \u2014 Jorge Luis Rivera, 56, of Fresno, has been sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $3,499,999 in restitution for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud offenses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">U.S. Attorney Eric Grant announced the results of the investigation Monday afternoon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">According to court documents, beginning in 2011 and continuing through August 2018, Rivera, the then-owner of El Ranchito Bakery in Fresno, exchanged Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for cash and also accepted SNAP benefits for unauthorized items at the request of customers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Rivera, in exchanging SNAP benefits for cash, did so at significant discount and thereby pocketed millions in ill-gotten profits, according to federal prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Rivera\u2019s sentence was also enhanced as he directed the participation of two lower-level employees of the bakery who engaged in the fraud. The two employees pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and were sentenced last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. \u2014 Jorge Luis Rivera, 56, of Fresno, has been sentenced to three years in prison and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-152002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}