Fraud Allegations Involve Hundreds In Midwest

There was already a story that several dozen people had been arrested in Michigan for Social Security fraud for cashing a duplicate Social Security check issued after claiming that the first check issued had not arrived as well as cashing the original check. Now, there are reports in the Battle Creek Enquirer, the South Bend, IN Tribune and TV station WOOD indicating that many hundreds have been arrested, perhaps more than a thousand in total, on the same type of charge

I expect that the majority of the defendants knew they were doing something wrong. However, I also expect that quite a number of those charged were just confused. The standard of guilt in criminal cases is beyond a reasonable doubt. I would not want to have to prosecute these cases. These are small time offenses and many of those charged are going to demand a trial and end up being acquitted. The whole thing is unlikely to be worth the effort put into it.

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has administrative sanctions available as an option for this sort of thing. I think that using that authority would have been a more sensible option for OIG. What has happened looks like OIG is too interested in making a big splash. My guess is that many, perhaps most, of these case will be plea bargained down to administrative sanctions anyway.