Men use dead woman’s Social Security benefits to pay Florida vacation home bills, feds say
For more than a decade, two Louisiana men drained a dead woman’s bank account of Social Security benefits and used her money to pay bills and buy cars, federal prosecutors said.
They stole over $442,000 in benefits that the Social Security Administration deposited into her bank account from August 1999 — the month she died — until July 2020, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.
The theft began as early as 2008, when the men started paying utility bills for their vacation home in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, with the woman’s money, a federal indictment filed April 19 says.
Prosecutors believe the men plotted to steal her benefits much earlier, on Nov. 15, 2002 — the day they purchased her New Orleans home, according to the indictment.
The two men also used her benefits to make $61,495 worth of payments for two Lincoln vehicles and for other personal expenses, including credit card and health insurance bills, prosecutors said.
The men, who are both 60 and live in New Orleans, were indicted on charges of a conspiracy to commit wire fraud, theft of government funds and making false statements to federal agents, the U.S. attorney’s office announced April 25.
Information regarding their legal representation wasn’t immediately available on April 26.
In addition to Social Security money, the men stole $1,200 in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds deposited into the woman’s account in April 2020, according to the indictment.
In 2022, both men lied to SSA special agents who interviewed them about the theft of the woman’s benefits, the indictment says.
One of the men “claimed he had no idea Social Security funds were used to pay for his vacation home’s utility bills in New Smyrna Beach, FL,” according to the indictment.
“However, in truth and in fact, (he) knew that (the woman’s) Social Security money” was used to do so, the indictment states.
From 2008 to 2015, the men paid $3,474.83 in bills for their Florida home, the indictment says.
They also used SSA funds to pay $2,527 toward utility bills for their New Orleans home from 2009 to 2017, according to the indictment.
If convicted on all counts against them, the men could face up to 35 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Both men are due in court for an arraignment on May 6, court records show.
This story was originally published April 26, 2024 at 9:54 AM with the headline "Men use dead woman’s Social Security benefits to pay Florida vacation home bills, feds say."
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