From MyNewsLA.com:
A former employee of the Social Security Administration district office in the Antelope Valley who admitted stealing over $25,000 from beneficiaries was sentenced Thursday in federal court to probation and restitution.
Dion Bright Jr., 34, of Lancaster, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin, who ordered restitution in the amount of the theft along with a year’s probation.
Bright pleaded guilty in July 2025 in downtown Los Angeles to a misdemeanor count of theft of government property.
As part of his job duties at the SSA field office in Lancaster, Bright would use a database to access claimants’ records to process claims for the aged, blind or disabled, and for workers who lost income due to physical or mental impairment.
During the scheme, from September 2022 to June 2023, Bright accessed beneficiaries’ SSA records, changed their mailing addresses so that they would not receive notices that their account information had been revised, and rerouted their benefits to a U.S. Bank account he controlled, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. …
11 comments:
The SSA employee was probably auditioning to being a future DOGE employee. The judge should be investigated for giving such a light sentence. The public depends on their SSA checks and for many it’s their only source of income.
This is so much worse than other SSA employee frauds because real beneficiaries had the money they were relying on diverted. In other ones I've seen, they add an auxillary and keep it under the family maximum, or take early retirement for someone who hasn't claimed yet and wasn't expecting it, or stuff like that. This guy's crime was particularly cruel--and particularly dumb because the victims would catch on fast and tell SSA they didn't get paid. He must have had a great defense attorney or a bad prosecutor.
I have no problem with a light sentence. Do you know how stressful it is to work at the agency these days? SSA should give him a second chance and hire him back.
Someone in management was doing their job and did the integrity checks. Kudos to the manager. No, we should not hire this criminal back.
You should evaluate your employment at SSA. Reasoning away a lawbreaking action by another SSA employees due to a stressful work environment is mind boggling. Do all of us a favor and look for line of work.
A nearby office has an EE steal thousands from widows. He would hold processing their claims for several months and then when he processed them, it would go to a bank account he controlled. He was off work for about a year and then magically transferred to another office. He still works for the agency. He had addiction and mental health issues and we surmise that is how he got his job back.
Reading this and the comments that follow infuriate me. If it were anyone outside a government workplace, they'd be in jail for a long time. This post burned me up!
For 25 years I did integrity reviews for my former office. Reviews I conducted caught several employees committing fraudulent acts. That led to several of them not only being fired but indicted and convicted.
Those who have committed fraud have NO PLACE ever working for this agency again. As President Cleveland said over 150 years ago "A Public Office Is A Public Trust"!
What is so special about this case that the prosecution and judge allow a slap on the wrist sentence of 1 year probation & restitution for stealing over $25,000 over several months from SSA beneficiaries? How many other current or former SSA employees has been treated in a similar manner or even with less punishment? Is part of the answer to hide or minimize this betrayal of trust from the public? Why not apply a more severe sentence to prove that the government and SSA do not tolerate a Social Security employee stealing from people they are here to serve?
It seems as when employees are caught stealing several hundred thousand dollars they only get a few years in prison plus restitution. Maybe the judge looked at those cases and that influenced his or her decision.
I think this person should have gotten about 3 to 4 years in prison.
I hope they catch the "tens of millions" Trump said were dead and getting benefits.
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