Milwaukee woman who admitted on TV's "Judy Justice" she sold food stamps must pay restitution.
A Milwaukee woman who admitted on an episode of TV's "Judy Justice" that she sold Wisconsin FoodShare benefits has been ordered to pay restitution to the state.
Katrina Weems, 36, must pay $1,533.84 to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services as a condition of her probation in an arrangement was reached Tuesday, online court records show.
Milwaukee County prosecutors charged Weems and Java'la Elams in July 2023 with multiple counts of money laundering and of misusing the benefits of FoodShare benefits, the Wisconsin food stamp program.
The charges were filed after the pair appeared before TV judge Judith Sheindlin on a 2022 episode of TV's "Judy Justice."
They were on the show to resolve a dispute over the sale of a used 2005 Toyota Camry, but revealed during the segment they sold food stamps, drawing the attention of fraud investigators in Wisconsin.
FoodShare is the Wisconsin food stamp program; it's the state's name for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Residents who are disabled, retired, living on a small fixed income or rely on low-income jobs are often eligible.
Nearly 710,000 people in Wisconsin receive FoodShare benefits, according to the most recent DHS data.
Weems was convicted in January on three counts of money laundering and three counts of misusing FoodShare benefits, but was acquitted on three other counts.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jorge Fragoso ordered Weems to six months behind bars, but stayed the sentence, and placed her on 12 months probation. The judge also ordered Weems to spend five days in jail.
Elams, 27, of Milwaukee, pleaded guilty in January 2024 to a felony charge of knowingly trafficking food stamps and testified against Weems at trial. Elams was given three days in jail.
"Judy Justice" is the continuation of the long-running "Judge Judy" daytime show that also starred Sheindlin, a former family court judge in Manhattan. "Judge Judy" ended in 2021.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee woman who admitted on TV's "Judy Justice" she sold food stamps. Now, she has to pay.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
6 hours ago
- The Hill
LA journalists sue Noem over DHS response to unrest amid immigration raids
The Los Angeles Press Club and other journalists are suing Kristi Noem, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, for using 'Unnecessary and excessive violence to prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights.' The lawsuit also accuses DHS of violating the Fourth Amendment prohibiting arbitrary arrests, and the Fifth amendment, which demands due process of law. 'Since June 6, at least seven members of our organization have been subject to use of force or suffered a serious press rights violation by DHS officers,' Adam Rose, press rights chair of the Los Angeles Press Club, said in a statement. 'Democracy depends on an informed public. An informed public depends on a press free to do its job without fearing violence by federal agents.' On June 6, protests erupted in Los Angeles while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were conducting raids in the garment district rounding up undocumented immigrants. On June 8, President Trump sent in 1,700 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines to help control the protests without California Gov. Gavin Newsom's (D) request or consultation. As protests grew, so did the violence. Some protesters were throwing rocks at law enforcement or burning vehicles. Law enforcement was shooting rubber bullets and using tear gas against protesters. The legal complaint reads, 'DHS agents did not target their assault towards people posing a threat in any way. Rather, they fired their weapons indiscriminately and at every angle in front of them in the direction of the gathered community, hitting people in the head with projectiles and choking them with tear gas. Some agents shot tear gas canisters and rubber bullets directly at people as they did this.' On June 18, Trump sent another 2,000 additional troops to the area. The DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The plaintiffs are arguing that the excessive use of force led to many journalists being unable or fearful of covering the protests, essentially limiting the amount of press coverage. 'What happened in LA isn't just a press crackdown, it's an assault on the rights of all Americans, especially working people,' said Jon Schleuss, president of NewsGuild-CWA in a statement. 'This state-sanctioned violence against journalists is meant to stop the public from learning the truth.' The lawsuit explains how multiple journalists were hurt in their encounters with DHS. Journalist Sean Beckner-Carmitchel was shot in the head with a rubber bullet and a tear gas canister by DHS agents on June 7, the complaint alleges. The same day, Ryanne Mena, who was wearing visible press credentials and working with the Southern California Newsgroup, was shot with a pepper ball and rubber bullet. This lawsuit was accompanied by a temporary restraining order meant to halt DHS' actions in LA by the weekend. The request was denied on Friday.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
'A good day': Detained U.S. citizen said agents bragged after arresting dozens at Home Depot
A 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was tackled to the ground and arrested after filming federal agents at Home Depot on Thursday said he was held for more than an hour near Dodger Stadium, where agents boasted about how many immigrants they arrested. 'How many bodies did you guys grab today?' he said one agent asked. 'Oh, we grabbed 31,' the other replied. "That was a good day today," the first agent responded. The two high-fived, as he sat on the asphalt under the sun, Job Garcia said. Garcia was released on Friday from a downtown federal detention center. No apparent criminal charges have yet to be filed. He is one of several U.S citizens arrested during enforcement operations in recent days. Department of Homeland Security officials say some have illegally interfered with agents' jobs. In response to questions about why Garcia was arrested and if he'd been charged, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. recommended a reporter contact the Department of Homeland Security. DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment. Garcia said he was shaken by what he heard while he was detained. 'They call them 'bodies,' they reduce them to bodies,' he said. "My blood was boiling." Garcia, a photographer and doctoral student Claremont Graduate University, had been picking up a delivery at Home Depot when someone approached the customer desk and said something was unfolding outside. "La migra, La migra," he heard as he walked out. He quickly grabbed his phone and followed agents around the parking lot, telling them they were "f— useless" until he came to a group of them forming a half-circle around a box truck. A Border Patrol agent radioed someone and then slammed his baton against the passenger window, his video shows. Glass shattered. He unlocked the door as people shouted. In the video, a stunned man can be seen texting behind the wheel. He had apparently refused to open his door. It's unclear from the footage what happened next, but Garcia said an agent lunged toward him and pushed him. "My first reaction was to like push his hand off," he recalled. Then, he said, the agent grabbed his left arm, twisted it behind his back and threw his phone. The agent brought him to the ground and three other agents jumped in, Garcia said "Get the f— down sir" and "give me your f— hand. You want it, you got it, sir, you f— got it. You want to go to jail, fine. You got it," an agent can be heard saying in the video. "You wanted it, you got it," the man yelled. An agent handcuffed him so hard "that there was no circulation running to my fingers," Garcia said. Pinned down, Garcia had difficulty breathing. "That moment, I thought I could probably die here," he said. The agent put Garcia's phone back in his pocket. The recording kept running. As Garcia was put into a vehicle, his video captured an agent twice saying: "I've got one back here." "You got one what?" Garcia shot back. "You got one what?" He said an agent told him in broken Spanish to "wait here,' though it could not be heard on the video. "I f— speak English, you f— dumbass," he clearly shouts back. No agent asked if he was an American citizen, he said. Nobody asked for identification. 'They assumed that I was undocumented," he said later in an interview. The video ends after about four minutes, while he is waiting in the van. Read more: Raid at a Home Depot in Hollywood shatters an immigrant refuge Garcia asked an agent to get his wallet from his car, so he could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Another agent retrieved his ID, but he remained handcuffed. They were so tight, his hands began to swell. The agents switched him to handcuffs that looked like shoelaces. They took off around a corner, stopped to shuffle him into another van and sped off down the 101 Freeway. "I smeared my blood in their seat," he said. And he thought, "They're going to remember me." With him in the van was a Mexican man, face downcast, who said his wife was six months pregnant. "My wife told me not to go to work today," the man said. "Something doesn't feel right," he said she told him. "It broke my heart," Garcia said. "I wish he was the one who got away when they were trying to grab me." On what he described as a ramp going into Dodger stadium near Lot K, Garcia was taken out of the car and told to sit on the asphalt as agents shuffled detainees into different vans and processed them for about an hour. A woman ran his background for criminal offenses. It felt surreal and enraging. 'They were trying to build some sort of case," Garcia said. He told The Times he was arrested at 17 for driving without a license. After they transported him, agents later fingerprinted him and tried to interrogate him. The agent said they wanted to "take your side of the story." Garcia declined. He said he overheard an agent tell someone, 'Trump is really working us." While held at a downtown detention facility, he met Adrian Martinez. Martinez, a 20-year-old Walmart worker and also a U.S. citizen, had been arrested on Tuesday while he tried to stop the arrest of a man who cleaned a shopping center in Pico Rivera. The two spoke for about 10 minutes, as Martinez waited to go to court. "You're the Walmart kid, right?" he asked him. Garcia told him what had unfolded outside the Home Depot. "That's exactly what happened to me," he said Martinez told him. "They were bullying this older guy. I didn't like that so I went and confronted them and they put their hands on me and I pushed their hands off.' U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted a photo of Martinez on X and said he "was arrested for an allegation of punching a border patrol agent in the face after he attempted to impede their immigration enforcement operation." Martinez was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to impede a federal officer. The complaint makes no reference to a punch, but alleges that Martinez blocked agents' vehicles with his car and then later a trash can. 'A complaint generally contains one charge and does not include the full scope of a defendant's conduct, or the evidence that will be presented at trial," said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office in L.A. "Considering this is an active case, we will not be providing further comments outside of court proceedings.' Martinez was released Friday on a $5,000 bond. 'U.S. Attorney Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent," Martinez's attorneys said in a statement. "However he has not been charged with an assault charge because he didn't assault anyone, and the evidence of that is clear." Garcia said his cellmate was worried about these protests. He asked, "Don't you think the protesters who are out there destroying property, rioters, is a bad look?" 'Rioting is the language of the unheard," he said, riffing on a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Padilla tears up recounting incident at Noem event, says escorts ‘stood by silently'
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) teared up during a Tuesday speech on the Senate floor while recounting being 'physically' and 'aggressively forced out' of last week's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press conference in Los Angeles. The Democratic lawmaker said his federal escorts 'stood by silently' as he was wrestled to the ground for interrupting DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday. 'I was physically and aggressively forced out of the room, even as I repeatedly announced I was a United States senator and I had a question for the secretary. Even as the National Guardsman and the FBI agent who served as my escorts and brought me into that press briefing room stood silently, knowing full well who I was,' Padilla said on the floor. He said agents forced him to the ground flat on his chest, while his thoughts raced. 'I pray you never have a moment like this,' Padilla said, with a choked voice, as he referenced Noem. 'In that moment, a lot of questions came to mind. First of all, 'Where are they taking me, because I know I'm not just being escorted out of the building? Am I being arrested here?'' he asked. 'And, 'What will a city already on edge from being militarized think when they see their United States senator handcuffed just for trying to ask a question?'' Noem said Padilla's behavior at the press conference 'wasn't appropriate.' White House officials backed his detainment. 'I think everybody in America would agree that that wasn't appropriate. That if you wanted to have a civil discussion, especially as a leader, a public official, that you would reach out and try to have a conversation,' Noem told reporters during the press conference. The White House shared a statement defending the senator's removal. 'Padilla didn't want answers; he wanted attention. Padilla embarrassed himself and his constituents with this immature, theater-kid stunt — but it's telling that Democrats are more riled up about Padilla than they are about the violent riots and assaults on law enforcement in LA,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told The Hill after the incident. Even some Republican lawmakers have questioned Padilla's treatment, however. 'I've seen that one clip. It's horrible. It is — it is shocking at every level. It's not the America I know,' Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said last week, according to multiple news outlets. President Trump remains in control of 7,000 California's National Guard members and hundreds of Marines deployed to Los Angeles to quell protests against the administration's recent immigration enforcement efforts. The Trump administration won back that control temporarily by appealing a lawsuit filed by California officials that contested the federal action. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
