A woman from the United States pretends to be her deceased mother to collect her social security pension for 25 years until the authorities discover her and condemn her to 1 year in prison. This deception allowed him to improper up to 307,000 euros, as reported by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Now he lives in a homeless shelter.
Mavious Redmond, 54 and resident in Minnesota, was sentenced on August 21, 2025 after being more than 2 decades deceiving the North American Social Security system. The penalty received is 1 year and 1 day in jail, in addition to 1 year of liberty, due to a crime of usurpation of identity and collection of quantities illegally.
He was charging the pension from 1999 to 2024
The defendant began to collect this benefit improperly in 1999 and kept it until 2024. Redmond was able to falsify signatures and even use personal data such as the date of birth and their mother’s social security number in official documents, to get through it. Not only that, but it even appeared in person in offices of the Social Security Administration simulating being the deceased woman.
As added, the defendant obtained extraordinary aids worth 2,730 euros during the Covid-19 pandemic, paid by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). A benefit that added to the total benefits received improperly for a quarter of a century.
Now is in ruin and homeless
This fraud reflects the vulnerability situation in which the defendant was. After his mother’s death, Redmond was helpless and worked “in a subway for eight dollars an hour and depended on food banks,” prosecutors said.
A time later he got a new job in McDonald’s, where he was serving a week of 25 hours per week. However, his boss discovered that he used the identity of his deceased mother, which caused his dismissal. Currently, he lives in a housing refuge.