Two Separate cases of Social Security employees committing criminal acts were recently in the news showing that although fraud is rather rare when it comes to Social Security benefits, it is still out there to come degree.
The first case involves a former employee of Social Security’s Aurora Illinois office that lasted five years and resulted in more than $700,000 being stolen. According to this story from the Daily Herald, 42-year-old Anne Aroste pleaded guilty in 2019 to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for stealing over $700,000 in fake benefits while she was an employee of Social Security from 2013-2018. Aroste used the identities of deceased individuals to create Social Security applications and used her ability to approve those applications to generate benefits where the funds would be directed to bank accounts controlled by Aroste, according to the story. Prosecutors said that the total amount Aroste stole was $732,382 over a five-year span.
In a press release from Social Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), where Aroste’s crimes were identified, so too were the misdeeds of Kurt Walter, an employee at the Elgin Illinois Social Security office. According to the press release, Walter was sentenced to two years of probation for accepting a bribe of $8,400 to access Social Security databases to provide earnings information of individuals to another party. Below is a synopsis of Walter’s actions as detailed in the press release.
In a separate case earlier this week, Kurt Walter was sentenced in the Northern District of Illinois for accepting a bribe in the course of his official duties as an SSA employee. Walter, who worked as a service representative in the Elgin, Illinois SSA office, received a total of $8,400 to access SSA databases and provide individuals’ earnings information to another defendant in the case, Joshua Hughes, without the individuals’ authorization. Hughes, who operated a process server company and a company providing consumer installment loans, then used the earnings information in wage garnishment actions against those individuals.
On Wednesday, September 30, Walter was sentenced for his role in the bribery scheme, receiving 2 years of probation. He resigned from SSA in February 2019, and had been charged via information in July 2019 with one count of bribery. Joshua Hughes previously pleaded guilty to bribery of a public official, and was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment.
The Inspector General, Gail Ennis said that Social Security has increased its efforts to stamp out fraud, whether it is perpetrated by beneficiaries or Social Security employees.
“SSA possesses the most sensitive and personal information for almost every person in this country, and SSA employees have a fundamental duty to protect that information,” said Inspector General Ennis. “We take any violation of the public trust very seriously, and we will continue to work with SSA to identify and root out suspected employee fraud. I want to thank the U.S. Attorney’s Office for its support of these investigations and its efforts to bring them to a successful resolution.”
These stories are definitely alarming, but as mentioned before, fraud is extremely rare at Social Security as the OIG’s office has previously indicated that the fraud incidence rate is just a fraction of one percent.
