Annapolis woman with 7 identities sentenced for fraud [The Capital, Annapolis, Md.]

June 19--An Annapolis woman was sentenced to five years in prison Monday for using false identities to defraud banks, Social Security and multiple insurers of $2.6 million over a three-year span, federal prosecutors said.

Winnie Joanne Barefoot, 59, pleaded guilty to the scheme in February. As part of her sentence, a federal judge in Baltimore ordered Barefoot to pay restitution, with the exact amount to be determined. She will be on supervised release for five years upon release.

From December 2005 to August 2009, Barefoot used the aliases of Olivia JoAnne Morgan and her daughter to conduct fraudulent real estate and loan transactions, three of which were for high-priced Annapolis homes and one for a business she operated, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors added that in her application to the lender, Barefoot misrepresented her daughter's assets and her ability to pay for the home. Her daughter never lived in the residence, and it ultimately went into foreclosure, costing the lender $415,000.

The following summer, Barefoot bought a second home on Coachway in The Downs community in Annapolis. She used the identity of Olivia Morgan while applying for first and second mortgage loans for $780,000 and $195,000, respectively.

Again, prosecutors said she falsely represented her income and assets to the lender and said the home would be her primary residence. Prosecutors said Barefoot's daughter and granddaughter lived in the home for about a month. It went into foreclosure and cost the lender $276,000.

In February 2007, Barefoot used a false Social Security number in a bank application to increase her home equity credit from $1.3 million to $2.1 million on another property in The Downs community. Barefoot lived at the home on Eaton Way from 2002 to 2008 with a man she claimed to be her husband.

Prosecutors said Barefoot lied on the application by claiming the couple earned $25,000 a month and had a net worth of more than $10 million.

Barefoot withdrew all of the credit -- about $800,000 -- from the increased line and stopped making payments on the loan. As it turned out, Barefoot's "husband" did not bring in any income and Barefoot's income was nowhere near what she claimed, prosecutors said.

The Eaton Way property went into foreclosure, leaving the bank with a loss of $700,000, plus attorney's fees and foreclosure costs.

Prosecutors said that while conducting these schemes, Barefoot sought and received supplemental income from the Social Security Administration by claiming to have been disabled due to back problems since 1997. She was ultimately approved for disability benefits in 2007 and received more than $26,000.

In late 2008, prosecutors said Barefoot lied to SSA representatives who were investigating her eligibility by saying she lived alone on Coachway, that she did not own the home, and that Olivia Joanne Morgan was her sister and was married to the man residing in the Eaton Way home. Prosecutors said Barefoot eventually returned the $26,000.

About the same time Barefoot applied for the benefits, she got commercial lines of credit loans, for $250,000 and $120,000, to finance a hyperbaric oxygen chamber business.

Barefoot used a fake Social Security number during the application process and falsely reported an annual household income of $12 million-plus, prosecutors said.

But in the second application, Barefoot said her monthly income was $30,861. She also reported annual sales from the business were $1.1 million and claimed not to have filed bankruptcy in 10 years, though she had filed for bankruptcy in 1999.

Prosecutors said Barefoot ran another hyperbaric oxygen chamber business from January 2008 through August 2010. They said Barefoot fraudulently billed for physician hyperbaric oxygen therapy sessions and physician evaluation and management services when no such services were provided to patients.

The scheme costs health insurance companies -- including Medicare, Care First Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna and Humana -- a total of $872,430.

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