Federal jury convicts Broward woman in $150,000 theft of late great-aunt’s Social Security funds

A Pompano Beach woman was convicted at trial earlier this month of theft of government funds and Social Security fraud for stealing her great-aunt’s retirement benefits for years after her death, federal prosecutors said.

Asha Anderson, 48, was found guilty by a federal jury of the two charges during a six-day trial.

Anderson was listed as the informant on her great-aunt’s death certificate after her death on March 26, 2017. The relative received monthly Social Security retirement deposits into a Chase bank account held solely in the woman’s name, according to a motion filed by prosecutors in August.

The Social Security Administration was not notified of the woman’s death, and the government continued issuing monthly payments into her Chase account, totaling more than $150,000 between March 2017 and November 2022, federal prosecutors wrote in the motion. During that time, prosecutors said Anderson repeatedly withdrew money from the account using her relative’s debit card.

“Between April 2017 and December 2022, Anderson repeatedly accessed her late great-aunt’s bank account and withdrew more than $152,000 in Social Security retirement benefits to which she was not entitled,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said in a news release this week. “Over the nearly six-year period, Anderson made hundreds of cash withdrawals from ATMs located primarily in Pompano Beach and Coconut Creek.”

Anderson’s own bank records showed she deposited thousands of dollars in cash in her accounts through 2022, “then suddenly stopped” after prosecutors said she no longer had access to her great-aunt’s accounts, according to the motion. Anderson made 65 cash deposits in one account between 2016 and 2022 and only five cash deposits in the two years after.

The defense argued in a responding motion that the bank records of the deposits “do not, by themselves, identify the person who conducted the transactions” and disputed that it was Anderson who used her relative’s debit card and PIN to make them.

“A reduction in cash deposits after December 2022 does not independently identify the source of earlier cash, the person who made each deposit, or the reason for changes in Ms. Anderson’s financial activity. Changes in income, employment, expenses, banking habits, account usage, family arrangements, and numerous other circumstances may affect cash-deposit patterns,” her defense attorneys wrote.

At trial, “the defense vigorously disputed that Ms. Anderson possessed [her great-aunt’s] debit card, knew the personal identification number associated with the account, or conducted the disputed withdrawals,” defense attorneys wrote in a motion last week requesting a new trial.

Anderson on Friday filed a motion for a new trial, arguing in part that the government at trial heavily relied on evidence of banking transactions that occurred before Anderson’s great-aunt’s death that were categorized as “improper,” and that the inclusion of that evidence was “unfairly prejudicial.”

She faces up to 10 years in prison related to the theft of government funds charge and up to five years on the Social Security fraud charge. A sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 6.

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