A federal judge sentenced Rose Henderson to one year in prison Wednesday after she kept collecting her mother’s Social Security benefits for nearly 25 years after she died in 1996.
The total – nearly $365,000 – was only discovered after a routine audit in 2021.
Henderson, 62, of Gary, pleaded guilty in October to wire fraud.
Her defense lawyer, Roxanne Mendez Johnson, told U.S. District Judge Gretchen Lund in a federal court in Hammond, Indiana, that her client was “very embarrassed” and regretted what she did.
For most of her life, Henderson was disabled herself at 25 and a caregiver to her parents and others around her. Originally from Chicago, she was often struggling and a few steps from poverty at any time, her lawyer said in court.
While he was sympathetic, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas McGrath said that federal prosecutors only selectively picked which Social Security fraud cases they pursued.
Both the grand total and length of time made the case “pretty extreme,” he said.
Since at least 2014, Henderson submitted sworn paperwork that her mother was still alive and detailed how she spent the money to care for her.
She was “intelligent” and “knew what she was doing,” he said. “There are real consequences to that.”
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Over the years, investigators tracked spending, including 10 trips to Las Vegas, a few cruises, and several cash withdrawals, such as $500 and $700 at local Northwest Indiana casinos.
“We have to make inferences,” he said.
During the hearing, Mendez Johnson said at least some of the Vegas trips were tied to church trips. It was not a typical fraud spending spree, she argued. She had no prior criminal history.
Particularly around 2020, Henderson lost the home her parents had left her, sending her into homelessness.
Any future Social Security disability benefits for Henderson would effectively be garnished by the government to repay what she owed, Mendez Johnson said.
She asked for her client to avoid prison, arguing it wasn’t a violent crime.
Henderson told the court during the hearing that her parents’ home was a “three-flat building”.
“After I lost my parents, I lost my way,” she said. “I meant no harm to nobody.”
Henderson’s crime was “not just an omission,” Lund said.
She wasn’t just paying day-to-day bills. Records showed she transferred the monthly checks to another account, which were typically “drained in a week or two,” the judge said.
She worked “systematically,” and was “continuous,” and “deliberative,” she said.