husband and wife to prison for social security fraud
Contact: Peter Deegan
A husband and wife who conspired to defraud the Social Security Administration were sentenced on October 26, 2010, to three months in federal prison.
Douglas Wayne Brandt, 55, and Rebecca Sue Hake, 58, both from Dumont, Iowa, received the prison terms after July 2, 2010, guilty pleas to conspiring to defraud the United States.
At the guilty plea hearings, Hake and Brandt admitted they concealed their marriage from the Social Security Administration in order for Hake to receive Social Security benefits to which she was not entitled. Both Hake and Brandt, who have been married since October 2003, admitted to lying to the Social Security Administration about their marriage. Through this fraud, the couple received $32,080.
Hake and Brandt were sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade. Both were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment followed by three months of home detention with electronic monitoring. A special assessment of $100 was imposed on each defendant, and they were ordered to make $32,080 in restitution the Social Security Administration. They must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.
Hake and Brandt were released on the bond previously set and are to surrender to the United States Marshal on November 12, 2010.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger and was investigated by the Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General.
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 10-2021-LRR.
