STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Recycled Rumor

Does a viral image show "a 27-year-old man from Jackson, Mississippi," who was arrested in early July 2025 "after allegedly hacking into the Hinds County Human Services system and approving every single application for food stamps"? No, that's not true: Variations of this recycled rumor have been circulating on the internet at least since 2020. No credible media organization reported the purported news in early July 2025, and the Mississippi Department of Human Services refuted the claim, talking to Lead Stories.

The claim reappeared in a post (archived here) publlished on X on July 6, 2025. It opened:

A 27-year-old man from Jackson, Mississippi, was arrested this weekend after allegedly hacking into the Hinds County Human Services system and approving every single application for food stamps.

But he didn't stop there -- he reportedly had new EBT cards mailed out to applicants with $2,500 loaded on each, and even credited existing cardholders with an extra $2,500.

His bond was set at $100,000 -- which he has since posted.

What an absolute legend. ✨🫡 💯

This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:

(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)

On July 7, 2025, Chief Communications Officer for the Mississippi Department of Human Services Mark Jones (archived here) told Lead Stories via email:

This is not a true story.

As of this fact check's publication date, the earliest appearance of the claim on the internet could be traced to a 5-year-old post on Reddit (archived here) that included the same image and described the man as "Eric Brown Jr."

The post on Reddit contained what appeared to be a screenshot of another social media entry that displayed the Fox News logo.

A Google search across the Fox News website for the keywords seen here yielded a story (archived here) from February 2025, but that suspect's appearance didn't match the man in the viral social media post reviewed in this fact check. Furthermore, the incident was a fatal shooting (archived here) -- not a benefit-related hack.

A search for reports from 2020 did not produce any results:

(Source: Google screenshot by Lead Stories)

Hinds County web pages were hacked at least twice -- in 2015 (archived here) and in 2023 (archived here). Yet, no credible media organization reported that any of those incidents resulted in the mass approval of food stamps nor that the suspect's name was "Eric Brown":

(Source: Google News screenshot by Lead Stories)

According to the Hinds County Sheriff's website, the list of the people arrested there between July 1, 2025, and July 7, 2025 (archived here, here and here) did not include anyone named "Eric Brown".

A search across inmates with the last name "Brown" (archived here) in that locality didn't show anyone with the first name "Eric".

An image of the same man as in the post that is the focus of this fact check appeared on what billed itself as an unofficial Illinois arrest database (archived here). In that picture (archived here), the man's T-shirt was purple.

A search across the Illinois Department of Corrections (archived here) returned several results for the people named "Eric Brown," but those entries manually reviewed by Lead Stoties showed people whose looks were different from the image on X.

Two AI detectors, Hive Moderation and AI or NOT, suggested that the image did not show a real person at all:

(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot by Lead Stories.)

(Source: AI or Not screenshot by Lead Stories)

Variations of this claim were investigated by AFP Fact Check and Check Your Fact as well.

Other fact checks

Other Lead Stories fact checks about events in the United States are here.