A Gardiner man pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Bangor to theft of public money and aggravated identity theft for illegally receiving nearly $6,000 in nutrition benefits.

Robert Jerome Bond, 46, now faces up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000 for the theft charge, plus a mandatory additional two years in prison for the identify theft charge, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty.

Bond applied for and was granted benefits in January 2011 from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, according to the release. Bond was a Canadian citizen at the time that he applied for those benefits using the name of U.S. citizen. Bond wasn’t eligible because he was not a U.S. citizen, so he improperly received more than $5,900 in SNAP benefits, according to the release.

The investigation into Bond’s case was conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Office of the Maine Attorney General and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.


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