Local News in Brief : ‘Welfare Queen’ Enters Guilty Plea
A Pasadena woman convicted in 1983 of perpetrating a $377,000 welfare fraud, the largest in U.S. history, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a considerably smaller welfare scam involving $450.
Former “Welfare Queen” Dorothy Woods, 47, who collected the latest assistance for a teen-age son who was not living with her, then was sentenced to five years’ probation by Superior Court Judge Lillian Stevens.
The judge also sentenced her to a year in County Jail, but because Woods had already spent that much time in custody after her 1987 arrest in the smaller scam, she was allowed to remain free.
In the earlier fraud, Woods collected welfare payments using phony names and non-existent children.
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