Eagan Woman Charged with Illegally Receiving Benefits

An Eagan woman has been charged with improperly receiving housing assistance benefits from the Dakota County Community Development Agency (CDA).

Charlotte Natasha Rayford, 29, is charged with felony theft by false representation, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

According to a criminal complaint, Rayford illegally received $2,109 in housing assistance benefits from the CDA from November 2009 through February 2010.

To be eligible for CDA benefits, recipients must reveal whether household members have ever been arrested, charged, convicted or on probation for a drug-related or violent crime.

The complaint says Rayford signed CDA forms on which she reported on her financial and household composition. In November 2009, she signed a form in which she told CDA officials that her husband was returning to the household after spending six months taking care of his grandmother, according to the complaint.

On the same form, Rayford told officials that her husband had never been involved in any drug-related or violent crime, the complaint says.

In February 2010, Dakota County sheriff’s deputies executed a search warrant at Rayford’s home and found her husband – who also goes by an alias – in the home. Two weeks later, Eagan police were called to the Rayford home on a report of a domestic dispute between the two.

Rayford told police that her husband uses a fake identity whenever he has dealings with the police, and that she had gotten back together with him after he served time in prison for making terroristic threats, according to the complaint.