Social Security was still paying benefits this year to a woman who died nearly 50 years ago, and her nephew had been cashing the checks, federal prosecutors said Tuesday, collecting a staggering $459,000 over the years.
The government also paid out a $1,200 coronavirus stimulus check this year to the woman, who according to records would have to have been 114 years old — the second-oldest person on Social Security.
In actuality the woman, identified only as AV in court documents, died in Brooklyn in 1971.
But the government began paying Social Security six years later in 1977, and she was listed as filing a change of address form in 1989, nearly two decades after her death, according to Scott Jones, a special agent with Social Security’s inspector general, who investigated the case.
Prosecutors say in reality her nephew, George Doumar, was cashing the checks — one a month, or more than 500 of them over 43 years — and keeping the money…
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