For five years, Wanda Thompson received food stamps and public assistance through the District’s welfare program. From February 1999 through January 2004, she claimed District residency and said she was unemployed, accepting thousands of dollars in aid from a strapped social services system.

But, as it turned out, Thompson was earning $33,090 a year at her job with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to the D.C. Attorney General’s Office. And she wasn’t even a D.C. resident, having moved to Oxon Hill in 1999.