Wayne Couple Pleads Guilty To Social Security Fraud
Huntington, WV – This week in Huntington, BRENDA SUE JUDE, 49, and her husband, RAY JUDE, 50, both of Crum, Wayne County, WV, pled guilty before United States District Judge Robert C. Chambers to offenses related to Social Security fraud.
The Judes were indicted by a federal grand jury last December in a 24-Count Indictment charging them with aiding and abetting each other in a mail fraud scheme to defraud the Social Security Administration (SSA). The Indictment charged that the Jude's schemed together to hide from the SSA the fact that they lived together. In papers filed in today’s plea hearing, the Judes admitted to repeatedly representing to the SSA that they were estranged and did not live together so that Brenda Jude would be eligible for Supplemental Security Income payments.
In papers filed with the court, the Judes admitted that during the time that Brenda Jude was receiving the Supplemental Security Income payments based on her representation to the SSA that she had no other income or assets, she and Ray Jude in fact pooled their incomes in a single bank account from which they paid their joint and individual living expenses.
At her hearing, Brenda Jude pleaded guilty to one count of that mail fraud scheme. Specifically, she admitted she submitted a written form to the SSA in February of 2003 falsely asserting that:
1. She lived alone
2. She paid $300 per month in rent
3. She had only $55 in cash and had no other resources or income
4. She had no contact with her husband, Ray Jude, who lived with another woman in the house Brenda Jude co-owned with him on Stonecoal Road
5. The house on Stonecoal Road had a value of only $50,000
In a written Stipulation of Facts attached to her plea agreement, Brenda Jude admitted that each of these statements was false. Bank records filed with the Court at the time of the hearing show that Brenda and Ray Jude shared a checking account together, through which over $12,000 passed in the 60-day period beginning January 18, 2003. Brenda Jude admitted that she regularly wrote checks out of this account for their joint and her own personal living expenses. Pursuant to her plea agreement, Brenda Jude is subject to pay over $70,000 in restitution to the SSA. United States Attorney Charles T. Miller said the prosecution was intended to protect the Social Security System upon which so many people in this country depend. "The Supplemental Security Income program exists to insure that the neediest people in our society have enough money to live on. It is criminal when people who have plenty make false statements about their income and assets in order to take money from this fund. Supplemental Security Income is not meant to be spent on swimming pools and jewelry."
"This prosecution should serve as notice to the people of this District that Social Security fraud is a serious offense. The FBI and the Office of the Inspector General of The Social Security Administration worked together to investigate this case, and they will continue that partnership in this District, searching diligently for other instances of fraud against the Social Security System. When fraud is discovered, it will be prosecuted," Miller stated. Read more at usdoj.gov
