A woman has been accused of pretending to be her dead mother and stealing $360,000 from the Social Security Administration (SSA) over the span of 25 years, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported on Thursday.

Why It Matters

Social Security payments are made monthly to more than 65 million Americans who often rely on the checks for their retirement living expenses.

However, the SSA now faces a funding crisis that could see its funds become insolvent by 2035. At that point, the SSA would only have enough money for around 80 percent of payments. Due to this, cases of fraud are particularly harmful to the SSA, which is also facing a budget shortfall and staffing shortages.

What to Know

Mavious Redmond, a 54-year-old living in Austin, Minnesota, faces three counts of wire fraud, one charge of theft of government funds and one charge of aggravated identity theft.

Redmond’s mother originally died in January 1999, but Redmond is accused by investigators of pocketing the benefits since then, the newspaper reported.

This is because she never alerted the SSA that her mother died and allegedly pretended to be her mother on occasion to SSA officials in order to keep receiving the benefits. That includes a November 2023 phone incident when she tried to change her mother’s address to her home in Austin.

The SSA sounded the alarm on Redmond in June 2024 after she visited her local Social Security office in person trying to get a new Social Security card for her mother. According to court documents, she showed an expired insurance card, leading to concerns over her mother’s identity.

What People Are Saying

Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: “While Social Security fraud isn’t common when you consider the sheer numbers of recipients nationwide, it occurs more often than it should. Normally, the fraud involves identity theft, and while this situation does involve that crime, it’s a bit more complicated. Instead of a thief getting ahold of identity data on someone they don’t know, this was a daughter allegedly taking advantage of her dead mother’s Social Security benefits.”

Morgan & Morgan Social Security disability attorney Bart Zadel told Newsweek: “Fraud is fairly uncommon in Social Security programs. In 2016, improper payments only accounted for a fraction of all benefits paid, and not all of those improper payments involved fraud… It is difficult to track and discover fraudulent activity in Social Security programs because the massive amount of data and sheer number of beneficiaries involved makes spotting inconsistencies challenging.”

What Happens Next

Redmond has an arraignment hearing scheduled for March.

After the Social Security Fairness Act was passed this month, the SSA could be in even more financial trouble as it raises benefits for around 3 million pension workers and their spouses.

The law is also estimated to cost $196 billion over 10 years, further contributing to the SSA’s depleting fund.

“Social Security is a massive administration that has also unfortunately seen cuts to staffing over the years,” Beene said. “The result is fewer people who can spot and investigate fraud and that opens the door to cases like this where the identity theft can go on for years before being discovered.”