Macon Police played major role in federal WIC fraud indictments

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) -The former Macon police department played a major role in a federal investgation by the U. S. Department of Justice into fraudulent use of 18 million dollars worth of food stamp vouchers.

Taquilla Johnson, Porsha Drewery, and Quinton Matthews all from Macon along with Ronnie Zachary of Byron were among 54 people indicted by a federal grand jury on Tuesday.

The Macon connection began when Matthews was stopped by a Macon police officer, Timothy Rivers, who spotted a bag filled with more than 300 WIC vouchers. That led police to the other Macon suspects.

Matthews and Zachry were later arrested during a raid at the former Pink and Blue Variety Store, which was located at 3707 Houston Avenue in Macon. It was forced to close its doors following the raid by Macon Police and the U.S. Department of Justice.

When they were all brought in for questioning, Chris Paul a former Macon Police detective aid he noticed the suspects responses were not making much sense.

“The sheer number of vouchers was why I became very suspicious and the way the suspects were acting about it when we questioned them,” said Paul. “They were trying to figure out how did we knew, what was going on. One guy asked us were we the WIC police.”

All of the 54 defendants in the WIC fraud case are charged with one count of mail and wire fraud conspiracy and one count of money laundering conspiracy.