A charge letter from USDA. Ten days to answer it.
USDA SNAP violation lawyers for retail stores accused of EBT trafficking and program violations. FNS builds its case from transaction data before the owner knows there is a case. The response window is 10 days under 7 CFR 278.6(b)(1) - and what gets filed in those 10 days can decide whether the store keeps its authorization.
The letter is the case.
Not a court. USDA's Food and Nutrition Service regional office issues the charges, weighs the response, and issues the determination - the same agency, at every step, until federal court.
The letter lists the specific transactions or conduct FNS believes violated the rules - often an attachment of EBT transactions the agency reads as trafficking. That attachment is the evidence to attack.
The firm may respond orally or in writing within 10 days of receiving the letter. In a trafficking case, the same 10 days is the only window to request a civil money penalty instead of permanent disqualification - with documentation attached.
A firm that does not request the trafficking CMP and document its eligibility within the 10 days "shall not be eligible for such a penalty." The regulation says shall. There is no second chance at that filing.
Every deadline in the case.
What the government calls trafficking.
Buying, selling, stealing, or exchanging EBT benefits, card numbers and PINs, or manual vouchers for cash or anything other than eligible food - directly, indirectly, or in collusion with anyone.
Exchanging firearms, ammunition, explosives, or controlled substances for SNAP benefits. This category also destroys CMP eligibility when ownership or management is involved.
Buying deposit-container products with benefits, dumping the contents, and returning containers for the deposit - what the agency calls water dumping.
Buying products with benefits intending to resell them for cash or non-food consideration, then actually reselling them.
Intentionally purchasing products that were originally bought with SNAP benefits, in exchange for cash or non-food consideration.
Attempting any of the exchanges above is itself trafficking under the regulation. A completed transaction is not required.
The definition matters because the penalty follows it: a single finding that "personnel of the firm have trafficked" supports permanent disqualification under 7 CFR 278.6(e)(1) - a clerk's conduct, attributed to the store. Whether the owner knew is not what saves the authorization. What saves it is the compliance record the owner can produce in 10 days.
The case was built from a spreadsheet.
FNS monitors every EBT swipe through its Anti-Fraud Locator using EBT Retailer Transactions - ALERT. The system compares a store's redemption pattern against similarly sized stores nearby, and the anomalies become the charge letter's attachment. In a 2025 Boston prosecution, agents built the case by comparing one 150-square-foot store against seven area supermarkets - the store was out-redeeming all of them.
Whole-dollar pricing, bulk meat and case-goods sales, large families shopping monthly, informal delivery orders, and cash-scarce neighborhoods all produce the same signatures ALERT flags. The response window is where those explanations get proved - with register data, wholesale invoices, shelf photographs, and customer patterns, transaction by charged transaction.
HAVE THE DATA REVIEWED →What FNS can impose, by tier.
The one exit from permanent disqualification.
In a trafficking case, FNS may impose a civil money penalty instead of killing the authorization - but only if the firm proves, by substantial evidence and inside the 10-day window, that it had a real compliance program before the violations happened. All four criteria must be met. This is why the compliance file a store builds today is worth more than any argument its lawyer can make later.
Dated policy statements committing the store to SNAP rules - and proof they reached the violating employee before the violation.
The policy and program must have been in effect at the violating location before the conduct in the charge letter - a policy written after the letter arrives proves nothing.
A documented training program - dated sign-offs, materials, refreshers - not a one-line handbook mention.
Ownership neither knew of, approved, benefited from, nor took part in the trafficking. A first management-level occasion may still qualify; a second never does - and trafficking in firearms or drugs by ownership or management is disqualifying outright.
A firm found eligible for the trafficking CMP keeps redeeming benefits while its case is reviewed, and does not pay the penalty while the appeal runs. A firm that never requested it shuts down the day the determination arrives. Same facts, opposite outcomes - separated by one 10-day filing.
For stores whose loss would strand SNAP households with no comparable store nearby. Never available against a permanent disqualification.
Selling a disqualified store triggers a penalty for the seller - for a permanent disqualification, double the ten-year calculation. Disqualification is not escaped by transferring the deed.
Average monthly redemptions for the 12 months before the charges × 10 percent × the months of disqualification the store would have served, capped per violation by regulation. The store's own redemption history sets the price - 7 CFR 278.6(g).
The whole process, start to federal court.
ALERT flags the store's EBT pattern. Contractors or agents may make undercover visits. By the time anything arrives in the mail, FNS has months of transaction data organized into exhibits. Stores that keep clean registers, dated invoices, and a documented training file are building their defense during this stage without knowing it.
The response has two jobs at once: rebut the charged transactions with store-level evidence, and - in a trafficking case - request the civil money penalty with the compliance documentation attached. Doing only one of those jobs is the most common unforced error in these cases.
The regional office weighs the letter, the response, and its file, then issues the determination. A permanent disqualification for trafficking takes effect the day the store receives it - appeal or no appeal. If the disqualification is later reversed, the government owes nothing for the lost sales in between. That is the statute, and it is why stage two matters more than stage four.
A written request to USDA's Administrative Review Division - signed by an owner, officer, partner, or counsel - puts the determination in front of a designated reviewer who was not part of the original decision. This is where transaction-by-transaction rebuttals, comparable-store data, and inventory records get a second, fuller hearing.
The store sues the United States in the district where it does business, and the court decides the case fresh - new evidence, witnesses, discovery - not deference to the agency file. A stay of the disqualification during the suit requires showing irreparable injury and a likelihood of winning; it is possible, and it is never automatic.
The same transaction data feeds prosecutions under 7 U.S.C. § 2024: benefits worth $5,000 or more is a felony carrying up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine; $100 to $5,000 carries up to five years; under $100 is a misdemeanor. Wire-fraud and money-laundering counts often ride along. Anything the store says to FNS can surface in the criminal case - which is why one counsel should be coordinating both files from day zero.
What is actually at stake.
For many neighborhood grocers, SNAP redemptions are the majority of food sales. Disqualification does not fine the store - it removes the customer base, and the statute bars recovering lost sales even after a reversal.
A disqualified store sells at a discount, the disqualification stays with the location, and the transfer CMP follows the seller - double the ten-year figure when the disqualification was permanent.
Prosecution under § 2024, wire-fraud counts, forfeiture of accounts and proceeds, restitution judgments, and immigration consequences for non-citizen owners - all built from the same EBT data.
The public docket, not a hypothetical.
These examples come from public Department of Justice records. They are cited to show how these cases are actually built and charged - they are not presented as Spodek Law Group matters or results.
United States v. Bonheur - the 150-square-foot store that out-redeemed supermarkets
A Boston convenience store owner sentenced to two years for food stamp fraud and wire fraud after redeeming $100,000 to $500,000 monthly from a store with one register and almost no inventory. The case began with ALERT redemption comparisons against seven nearby supermarkets, then four undercover cash exchanges. $1 million restitution; roughly $400,000 forfeited.
United States v. Fernandez Vicioso - fraudulent EBT cards feeding a restaurant's inventory
A Massachusetts restaurant operator charged with conspiring to use SNAP EBT cards issued in stolen identities to buy bulk food at wholesale clubs for resale through the restaurant - charged as both conspiracy and unauthorized use under § 2024(b).
United States v. Quinones - 1,200 EBT cards and $1.55 million in redemptions
A guilty plea to wire fraud for exchanging cash for access to more than 1,200 recipients' Link cards, buying goods at authorized stores, and reselling them - a five-year scheme reconstructed entirely from card and purchase data.
The pattern across the docket: transaction analytics first, undercover confirmation second, charges third. A store that answers the analytics early - while the case is still administrative - is fighting one case. A store that waits is usually fighting two.
The defense Netflix put on screen.
Todd Spodek's defense of Anna Sorokin became Netflix's Inventing Anna. When national outlets need a federal defense lawyer on the record - CNN, Fox News, the New York Post - this is the firm they put on camera. The same counsel answers the phone when a store owner calls about a charge letter.
Netflix told the story. The defense was ours.
When Shonda Rhimes built Inventing Anna, the defense at its center was Todd Spodek’s - argued for the so-called fake heiress in a Manhattan courtroom long before Arian Moayed of Succession played him on screen. What 320 million hours of viewers watched is the method every client of this firm gets - including the store owner with a charge letter on the counter.
Start preserving these today.
Wholesale invoices, delivery receipts, and supplier statements. Redemptions can only be fraud if the food was never there - the invoices prove it was.
Register tapes, POS exports, and bank deposits matching the charged dates. A flagged $240 transaction looks different next to the receipt showing two carts of case goods.
Dated photographs of shelves, coolers, and stockroom; CCTV footage before it overwrites. FNS describes the store from a visit or two - the store can document itself every week.
Written SNAP policy, dated employee sign-offs, training materials, and records of discipline for violations. This file is the entire CMP case under 278.6(i) - it cannot be written after the letter arrives.
A SNAP violation case is two cases wearing one set of facts. The administrative case moves in days and can end the store; the criminal case moves in months and can end much more. The defense that works treats them as one file with two deadlines - and starts before either deadline runs.
The government's proof is a comparison, not a witness.
Most retailer trafficking charges rest on EBT transaction analysis: the store's redemptions compared against stores FNS considers similar. Every assumption in that comparison is attackable - the comparison stores, the neighborhood's cash economy, the store's actual product mix, the shopping patterns of large households and monthly-benefit cycles. Courts reviewing these cases de novo have seen data-only cases both stand and fall; what decides them is whether the store answers the data with records or with adjectives.
An employee's swipe is the owner's problem - by design.
The regulation disqualifies a firm when "personnel of the firm" traffic - the clerk's conduct is the store's conduct for disqualification purposes. The owner's knowledge matters in a different place: Criterion 4 of the trafficking CMP, where an ownership that did not know, approve, benefit, or participate can pay a penalty and keep the authorization. That is the architecture of the defense: contest the violations, and prove the compliance program, in the same 10-day response.
The review that matters is the one in federal court.
Administrative review is decided inside the same agency that issued the charges. Judicial review under 7 U.S.C. § 2023 is different in kind: a trial de novo where the store can take discovery, put on witnesses, and make the government prove the violations fresh. The 30-day filing window is jurisdictional in practice - and the sanction usually stays in force during the suit unless the court grants a stay on a showing of irreparable injury and likelihood of success. Getting the record built early is what makes that showing possible.
What we actually do in the first week.
Confirm the delivery date and calendar every deadline. Obtain the charge letter's transaction attachment and map each charged transaction against register data, invoices, and inventory. Assemble the compliance file for the CMP request if trafficking is charged. Interview - through counsel - the employees on the charged shifts. Assess criminal exposure before anything is submitted to FNS, because the FNS response is discoverable. Then file a response that does both jobs on time.
The SNAP violation library.
SNAP violation defense, where the store is.
SNAP retailer cases run through FNS regional offices and federal district courts - not state court - so the defense is the same body of federal law everywhere. These guides cover what store owners in each market ask most.
By state
By city
Questions store owners actually ask.
What happens if we just ignore the FNS charge letter?
FNS decides on its own file, the strongest evidence never gets in front of the agency, and - in a trafficking case - the civil money penalty option is forfeited permanently under 7 CFR 278.6(b)(2)(iii). Silence is the single most expensive response available.
My clerk exchanged benefits for cash without my knowledge. Am I still responsible?
For disqualification purposes, yes - the regulation reaches trafficking by "personnel of the firm." But an owner who did not know, approve, benefit from, or participate in the conduct may qualify for a civil money penalty instead of permanent disqualification, if the store had a documented compliance policy and training program in place before the violations and requests the CMP within 10 days of the charge letter.
Can we keep taking EBT while we appeal?
It depends on the sanction. A permanent disqualification for trafficking takes effect the day the determination is received, appeal or not - and the statute bars recovering lost sales even if the store later wins. Firms found eligible for the trafficking CMP may continue redeeming while review runs. During a federal-court appeal, a stay requires showing irreparable injury and a likelihood of prevailing under 7 U.S.C. § 2023(a)(17).
The case is built entirely on transaction data. Can that really be enough?
The regulation expressly allows FNS to find violations from "inconsistent redemption data" and EBT transaction reports - no undercover buy required. Courts have sustained data-only cases where the store offered no transaction-level rebuttal, and rejected them where the store proved its inventory and customers explained the pattern. The record the store builds is what separates those outcomes.
Will there be a criminal case too?
Not always - but the same data supports prosecution under 7 U.S.C. § 2024(b): benefits of $5,000 or more is a felony carrying up to 20 years; $100 to $5,000 carries up to five years; wire fraud and money laundering often accompany. That risk is exactly why the FNS response must be written by counsel who is defending the criminal exposure at the same time.
Can I sell the store if it gets disqualified?
Selling a disqualified store triggers a transfer civil money penalty against the seller under 7 CFR 278.6(f)(2) - calculated from the store's own redemption history, and doubled off a ten-year figure when the disqualification was permanent. The disqualification also stays with the location. Exit planning in these cases is a legal question, not just a business one.
We won the administrative review - or lost it. What now?
A loss at administrative review opens a 30-day window to sue the United States in federal district court, where the case is tried de novo - fresh evidence, fresh findings, no deference to the agency's conclusion. After 30 days the determination becomes final. That window is the last door in the process, and it does not reopen.
The sources on the record.
Put the letter in front of counsel.
Tell us what arrived and when. The intake team will identify conflicts and the right next step. If a deadline runs this week, call.
212 300 5196