Another week has brought more announcements about people caught, arrested for, indicted for, or pleading guilty to crimes involving Social Security. A roundup of the latest:
Two Social Security Numbers in Maryland
A seventy-two-year-old Maryland woman has been hit with federal charges alleging that she received Social Security under two different numbers after prosecutors say she falsely claimed that her deceased husband was still alive. The woman, charged by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, was brought up on charges of theft of government property and Social Security fraud.
The woman, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a press release, “allegedly obtained two social security numbers and did not report to the Social Security Administration or the State of Maryland that she was receiving widows insurance benefits (WIB) payments under another social security number.” As a result, the prosecutors said, she illegally received $89,085 worth of supplemental security income (SSI), Medicaid, and Food Supplement benefits.
Prosecutors allege that the woman got her first Social Security number in 1973, and got another the same year, under her married name. She also never disclosed to the Social Security Administration that she was collecting benefits under two names and Social Security numbers. She faces, per the U.S. Attorney’s office, “ a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for theft of government property and 5 years in federal prison for…
