Woman Sentenced For Posing As Dead Mother Amid 25-year Social Security Scam

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A Minnesota woman has been sentenced to prison for a 25-year-old Social Security scam, during which she posed as her dead mother, federal prosecutors said.

On Thursday, Aug. 21, Mavious Redmond, 54, of Austin, Minnesota, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for pretending to be her deceased mother to claim Social Security Retirement Insurance Benefits, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota. Over the course of 25 years, officials believe Redmond fraudulently collected $360,627.

"Redmond’s scheme was brazen and shameless," U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said in the news release. "This wasn’t free money. It was taxpayer money, stolen from a program built on the hard work of Minnesotans who paid in every paycheck."

Redmond's fraud began in January 1999, following the death of her mother, the U.S. attorney's office said. According to the news release, through June 2024, Redmond used her mother's identity as her own, including her biographical information like date of birth and Social Security number on official forms. She also forged her mother's signature, and when necessary, Redmond also acted as her mother on the phone and during in-person visits to the Social Security Administration (SSA) office.

Additionally, after her mother's death, Redmond contacted the SSA to ask, hypothetically, about the termination of her mother's benefits if she died, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Redmond was told she needed to notify the SSA of her mother's death so the benefits could be terminated, though Redmond never did this, the news release states.

Redmond also accessed and took $3,200 of COVID-19 Economic Impact Payments that the IRS distributed to her dead mother's bank account, the U.S. attorney's office said.

After her prison sentence, Redmond will be under supervised release for another year.

"She is not a hardened criminal," Robert Meyers, a Minnesota federal defender who represents Redmond, wrote in court documents. "Mavious Redmond's crime was a crime of opportunity born of desperation. This fraud was not so that she could live large."

According to court documents, Redmond lived with her parents her entire life, and after her mother's death, she was left alone with no support system. She worked full-time at a Subway making $8 an hour and relied on food pantries.

Redmond's "desperate circumstances" are not an excuse for her actions, Meyers wrote, but make sense considering her situation.

After her fraud was uncovered, Redmond got a job at a local McDonald's, working 25 hours a week. She worked at the fast-food restaurant for eight months before her employer learned of her offense and fired her, the court documents state.

In June, Redmond moved to the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, where she lives in a homeless shelter, the documents continue. She has a housing stabilization advocate and is actively applying for jobs.

"All of this demonstrates Ms. Redmond's commitment to doing things the right way and turning her life around," Meyers wrote. "In sum, she is in a good position to learn from her mistakes and to get the help she needs so that she never makes those mistakes again."

Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Story idea? Email her at gcross@usatoday.com.