Feds say that for more than ten years, two men in Louisiana took money from a dead woman’s Social Security payments and used it to pay bills and buy cars.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana says they stole more than $442,000 in benefits from August 1999 (the month she died) until July 2020. The Social Security Administration sent the benefits to her bank account.
In 2008, the men started using the woman’s money to pay their Florida vacation home’s energy bills, according to a federal indictment filed April 19. This is when the theft started.
According to the charge, prosecutors think the men planned to steal her benefits much earlier, on November 15, 2002, which is the day they bought her home in New Orleans.
According to the prosecutors, the two men also paid $61,495 for two Lincolns and other personal bills, such as credit card and health insurance bills, with her benefits.
They are both 60 years old and live in New Orleans. On April 25, the U.S. attorney’s office said they were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, theft of government funds, and giving false information to federal officials.
It wasn’t immediately clear on April 26 what information was known about their lawyer.
The indictment says that the men stole both Social Security money and $1,200 in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds that were put into the woman’s account in April 2020.
The indictment says that both men lied to SSA officers who asked them about the theft of the woman’s benefits in 2022.
The charge sheet says that one of the men “said he had no idea that Social Security funds were used to pay for the utility bills at his vacation home in New Smyrna Beach, FL.”
As the charge says, “however, in truth and fact, (he) knew that (the woman’s) Social Security money” was used for this.
The charges say that the guys paid $3,474.83 in bills for their Florida home from 2008 to 2015.
The charges also say that from 2009 to 2017, they paid $2,527 in energy bills for their home in New Orleans with money from SSA.
Lawyers for the men said they could spend up to 35 years in jail if they are found guilty of all the charges against them.
The arraignment for both guys is set for May 6, according to court records.
