BOSTON (AP) — The suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings killed in a shootout with police received welfare benefits from the state up until last year, when he became ineligible based on family income.
A spokesman for the state Office of Health and Human Services on Wednesday confirmed a Boston Herald report that 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev (tsahr-NEYE’-ehv), his wife and their toddler daughter had received benefits.
A lawyer for his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaeva (tsahr-NEYE’-ehv-ah), has said that she worked 70 to 80 hours per week as a home health aide while her husband cared for their daughter.
The state says both Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) — his brother and the other bombing suspect — received welfare benefits as children through their parents while the family lived in Massachusetts.
Neither was receiving benefits at the time of the bombing.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
