A father and daughter traffic $885,000 through a Newark deli
Maria Teresa Venegas, listed owner of Jenny's Deli in Newark, New Jersey, and her father Manuel Venegas, an employee there, exchanged more than $885,000 in SNAP benefits for cash between 2011 and 2018. An undercover agent completed roughly 20 cash-for-benefits purchases at the store before charges were filed. Maria Teresa pleaded guilty and was sentenced in February 2019 to two years in prison; Manuel pleaded guilty and was sentenced the following month to 18 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and $573,199 in restitution.
- Year
- 2019
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Sentenced
- Reported loss
- $885,000
- Victims
- Not stated in the sources
- Schemes
- SNAP benefits trafficking
- Last reviewed
- 2026-10-14
The facts, as recorded
- Maria Teresa Venegas was the listed owner of Jenny's Deli, a small grocery store in Newark, New Jersey, authorized by USDA to accept SNAP benefits.
- Her father, Manuel Venegas, 54, of Newark, worked at Jenny's Deli from March 2015 to March 2018.
- According to the charges against them, Maria Teresa and Manuel Venegas exchanged more than $885,000 in SNAP benefits for cash between 2011 and 2018, in violation of the rule that SNAP-authorized retailers may sell food for benefits but may not exchange benefits for cash.
- Investigators verified the fraud through roughly 20 undercover 'purchases' at Jenny's Deli, in which an undercover agent exchanged money for SNAP benefits with Manuel, Maria Teresa, or another employee acting at their direction.
- Maria Teresa Venegas pleaded guilty to SNAP benefit fraud in September 2018 and was sentenced by US District Judge John Michael Vazquez on February 20, 2019, to two years in prison.
- Manuel Venegas pleaded guilty to an information charging one count of SNAP benefit fraud, and Judge Vazquez sentenced him on March 6, 2019, to 18 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and $573,199 in restitution.
- The investigation was conducted by special agents of the US Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General.
Why this case matters
This is the smallest scheme by dollar value on this page, and the one that best shows how ordinary the mechanism is at a small scale: a family-run deli, an EBT terminal, and seven years of exchanging benefits for cash before an undercover investigation caught up with it.
How the undercover buys actually worked
SNAP’s own payment mechanics made the proof straightforward once investigators looked: every SNAP recipient uses an EBT card, similar to a debit card, at a retailer’s EBT terminal, which checks the recipient’s balance and authorizes or denies the purchase before crediting the retailer’s bank account. An undercover agent posing as a recipient could complete the same cash-for-benefits exchange any real trafficking customer would, roughly 20 times over the course of the investigation, each one a recordable, provable transaction.
A scheme that ran through two generations of one family
Maria Teresa Venegas held the store’s SNAP authorization as its listed owner; her father worked the register. Prosecutors charged each of them separately for their own role, and each received a different sentence, Maria Teresa two years, Manuel 18 months plus restitution, reflecting their different parts in the same underlying scheme rather than treating the family as a single unit.
The caveat
Both Maria Teresa and Manuel Venegas pleaded guilty and have been sentenced. The facts above, including the $885,000 total, the seven-year timeframe, and the undercover purchase count, come from the Justice Department’s own account of the charges they admitted to, not from an unproven accusation.
Sources
- Essex County, New Jersey, Man Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison for his Role in a Food Stamps Fraud Scheme. US Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey. Accessed 2026-10-14. Supports: Every fact above: the Venegas family's roles at Jenny's Deli, the $885,000 in SNAP benefits exchanged for cash between 2011 and 2018, the roughly 20 undercover purchases, Maria Teresa's earlier guilty plea and February 2019 sentence, and Manuel's guilty plea, March 2019 sentence, supervised release and restitution amount.