An Austin, Minnesota woman has been sentenced to prison after carrying out an audacious quarter-century scam, abusing the social security system. Mavious Redmond, 54, was handed a year and a day behind bars followed by a year of supervised release for her prolonged impersonation of her deceased mother, which enabled her to fraudulently claim over $360,000 in benefits.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson did not mince words when he described Redmond's actions as "brazen and shameless." As outlined in court records released by The U.S. Attorney’s Office, Redmond's deception began with a phone call to the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 1999 to inquire about the protocol should her mother pass away. In spite of knowing the legal requirements to report her mother's death, Redmond chose the path of deceit, which she tread for more than two decades.
Her elaborate fraud included forging her mother's signature on official documents, repeatedly posing as her mother, and altering addresses to align with her own relocations. Her impersonation reached a peak when she visited the SSA office in person on June 4, 2024, submitting a fraudulent Social Security form.
Redmond's scheme not only misled the SSA but also the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), leading to a mistaken dispersion of $3,200 in COVID-19 Economic Impact Payments to her mother's bank account, which Redmond subsequently accessed. In a statement published by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the presiding Judge Brasel cited the duration of the fraud and the personal impersonations as aggravating factors in the sentencing.
The investigation that brought Redmond to justice was a collaborative effort between the SSA – Office of Inspector General and the IRS, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew D. Evans leading the prosecution. With Redmond's conviction, the authorities signal a continued effort to clamp down on fraudsters who see government coffers as personal reserves.
