Senate bill would cut federal aid for people living with convicted fraudsters

WASHINGTON - Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is pushing a bill that would cut many forms of federal aid for people who live with convicted fraudsters, after spotlighting family rings that stole pandemic relief money, the New York Post reported.

Ernst's No Cash for Cohabitating Kins of Crooks Act would bar people who live with convicted criminals or fraudsters from federal grants, loans, subawards, or reimbursements. The measure includes carve-outs for spouses who live separately and for survivors of domestic abuse.

Her August waste spotlight highlighted about 50 million dollars in schemes she tied to fraudster families. At the top was a California case in which Richard Ayvazyan and his wife, Marietta Terabelian, were convicted in a plot that stole about 18 million dollars in COVID-19 relief. The New York Post said they later cut off ankle monitors, left their children a goodbye note, fled the country, and were caught in Montenegro. Ayvazyan is serving 17 years and Terabelian six years, according to the report.

Prosecutors said the couple worked with relatives, using stolen identities from exchange students as well as elderly and dead people. A judge called Ayvazyan a cold-hearted fraudster who treated fraud as an achievement.

Ernst also cited family convictions tied to Minnesota's Feeding Our Future child-nutrition fraud, a Florida family ministry that sought millions in Paycheck Protection Program funds, four sisters who filed false farm-aid claims for about 11.5 million dollars, and a Washington state caregiver fraud case against the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The bill is not yet law. It sits inside a broader Republican push to claw back pandemic fraud and tighten future aid rules. Taxpayers who were never part of those schemes still paid for them through higher debt and thinner program dollars.