Press Release
SEBASTIAN WOMAN SENTENCED ON FRAUD CHARGES
September 21, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jeffrey H. Sloman, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Guy P. Fallen, Special Agent in Charge, Social Security Administration, Office of Inspector General, and Amie R. Tanchak, Resident Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), announced that defendant Penelope Sharon Jordan, 61, of Sebastian, FL, was sentenced today on charges of theft of government funds, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. Jordan had pled guilty to this charge on June 22, 2009. U.S. District Judge Donald Graham sentenced Jordan to one year and one day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. In addition, the Judge ordered that Jordan repay to the Government $237,876 in restitution for Social Security payments and military pension payments she had unlawfully received and kept.
According to an affidavit filed by a Sebastian Police Department detective in support of an application for a state court search warrant, Penelope Jordan lived in a Sebastian home owned by her mother. In late March 2009, the Sebastian Police Department obtained the defendant’s consent to look inside the home, where they found the dead body of her mother in a spare bedroom. The defendant told Sebastian Police that her mother had been dead for at least six years. Evidence presented during sentencing indicated that, in December 2001, Penelope Jordan had told her visiting sister that their mother had already died before that earlier date.
According to in-court statements during the plea, the defendant concealed the death of her mother and withheld reporting her death in order to continue receiving both her mother’s Social Security survivor’s benefit payments and her mother’s military pension survivor’s benefit payments. From January 2003 through March 2009, the defendant received approximately $61,415 in Social Security payments, plus $176,461 of military pension benefits, to which she was not entitled.
Mr. Sloman commended the investigative efforts of the Social Security Administration-Office of Inspector General, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), the efforts of City of Sebastian animal control and building code officers, and the Sebastian Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Theodore Cooperstein.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
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