A South Carolina woman pleaded guilty last week to stealing money from her deceased relative’s pension benefits earned from working at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.
On April 9, the Department of Justice announced Effie Mae Youmans, 71, of Columbia, admitted to theft of public money by wrongly collecting someone else’s pension benefits. According to the news release, Youmans had collected 18 months of pension payments before investigators learned that her relative had died. At $3,025 per payment, that totaled $54,450.
The investigation found that SRS was not told the retiree had died, and that Youmans withdrew the overpayment funds from the bank account. Youmans, also being an SRS pension recipient, “knew she was not entitled to the relative’s pension funds,” the release states.
United States District Judge Joseph Anderson, Jr accepted the guilty plea and will sentence Youmans at a later date. As part of her plea agreement, she must repay the stolen money.
The Savannah River Site is a 310-square-mile facility near Aiken, S.C. The investigation was carried out by the DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, one that investigates and prosecutes those who steal or fraudulently misuse taxpayer dollars.