After multiple arrests, Iowa man sues when he's denied SNAP benefits
An Iowa man who says he has no stable access to food is suing the state, alleging it has unfairly denied him access to food assistance based on a criminal conviction later voided by the courts.
Charles Hasselmann, 32, of Ankeny alleges that in 2023, he applied for food assistance while residing in a correctional facility as a result of a probation-revocation order that was premised on a finding of him being a habitual offender.
The sentence was later vacated by a district court judge, Hasselmann claims, with the judge finding the habitual-offender enhancement to his sentence on a theft conviction lacked sufficient factual basis. Because of that finding, the court also set aside the related order that revoked his probation, Hasselmann claims.
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Court records indicate the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services later disqualified Hasselmann from receiving food assistance through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, for at least 12 months. It also demanded restitution for overpayment, citing 'stolen' funds that Hasselmann says are due to others' unauthorized use of his benefits card.
In his lawsuit against DHHS, Hasselmann is seeking an injunction that would award him SNAP benefits and halt any further efforts at collections for the alleged overpayments.
In his petition, Hasselmann claims he was recently released from more than two years of incarceration and now has no reliable access to food or income. The public interest, he argues, strongly favors his access to 'basic nutritional support.'
The state has yet to file a response to the lawsuit, but in a related court case attorneys for the state argued that while a judge did find there was insufficient factual basis to impose the habitual-offender sentence enhancement on the conviction for theft, the court did not disturb the underlying conviction for theft.
The state's lawyers say that under a plea deal that was later reached, Hasselmann had agreed to a prison term of no more than five years on the theft charge. The court then set aside the earlier probation violation order, the state alleges, not because it represented 'an illegal sentence,' but because, through the subsequent plea deal, a five-year prison sentence had been agreed to and imposed.
Court records indicate that since 2012, Hasselmann has been charged with numerous felony and misdemeanor offenses, resulting in seven convictions for theft, five convictions for driving while barred, five convictions for forgery, two convictions for assault and two convictions for drunken driving.
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