Alleged Boston Marathon bombing mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev had an odd career path: college student majoring in engineering to prospective boxer … to welfare recipient. On Tuesday evening, Massachusetts state officials admitted that Tsarnaev had been picking up his welfare check, along with his wife, Katherine Russell, and their 3-year-old daughter.
The benefits ran out in 2012 after Russell started earning enough to disqualify him for benefits, apparently working some 80 hours per week as a home health aide while Tamerlan hung out at home and cooked up plots to bomb things. Welfare was a way of life in the Tsarnaev household; both parents received it as well. Massachusetts will not say what sort of benefits the Tsarnaevs received, and stonewalled until late on Tuesday evening after the Boston Herald began questioning local lawmakers on the matter.