from the Times'

artappraiser — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 23:32:04 +0000

In reply to Cops, firefighters among 100 former NYC workers charged in disability scam

from the Times' article:

[....] The 11-page bail letter [...] traced the scheme’s origins to 1988, and estimated that the retirees collected fraudulent disability awards ranging from approximately $50,000 to $500,000.

“Based on evidence gathered by the SSA Inspector General and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, we estimate that over the 26 years of the charged scheme, fraudulent claims were filed with respect to as many as 1,000 individuals totaling as much as $400 million in benefits received,” according to the letter from the assistant district attorneys Bryan Serino and Christopher Santora.

One person with knowledge of the matter said that Mr. Lavallee had been handling Social Security disability claims since the 1970s, and that investigators believed the scheme may have begun well before 1988.

The letter said that the Social Security Administration had paid out a total of $21.4 million in benefits to the 102 people charged in the indictment.

Several people involved in the case said that it was likely that as many as 50 more people would be charged in the coming weeks with making fraudulent claims. Investigators and prosecutors were still collecting evidence, the people said, to determine how many others among the roughly 1,000 people who they believe made false claims can be charged.

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from the Times'