WPD Charges Two Women for Using Stolen EBT Card at Price Rite

WARWICK, RI — Warwick Police arrested and charged two women with conspiracy and obtaining money under false pretenses Feb. 21 after they turned themselves in following a WPD Facebook post showing them using a stolen EBT card at the Bald Hill Road Price Rite.

Det. Matthew Smith, who posted the photos of the women, arrested Robin Houle, 49, of 3 Elmore St., Warwick, and Naomi Ramsdell, 30, of 80 Hedley Ave., Apt. 1, Central Falls, for using the EBT card, which had been reported stolen, according to the officer’s report.

Smith reported that Ramsdell contacted him by phone shortly after he posted the photos to the WPD Facebook page to tell him that she and the other woman in the photos, her mother, Houle, would come to Warwick Police Headquarters, 99 Veterans Memorial Drive, to speak with him about using the card.

Ramsdell told Smith that on Jan. 19, a woman approached her in the Price Rite parking lot and asked if she and her mother wanted to buy food stamps. Ramsdell said the woman offered them $250 worth of food stamps for $100 in cash, according to the report.

Ramsdell said they agreed, and each gave the woman $50, receiving the EBT card in exchange. She said the woman then offered the remaining balance of the card for an additional $100, but she only had $72, which the woman accepted. She said they agreed to meet at McDonald’s on Broad Street in Providence to return the card.

Ramsdell said she and Houle purchased groceries for their own use at the Price Rite, and that she later visited the Stop and Shop on Garfield Avenue in Cranston to make a second purchase. Ramsdell said she returned to the McDonalds to return the card as agreed.

Houle repeated the story, adding that they had also been given the Personal Identification Number to use the EBT card.

Each woman described the woman who had sold the EBT credit to them as a short, light-skinned woman with dark hair.  When asked to identify the woman from a photo series, neither woman was able to correctly identify the owner of the EBT card, according to the report.

Smith charged the women and they were later released, each on $100 bail.