Woman pleads to collecting deceased dad's benefits

In 2019, in response to a routine audit looking into possible fraud, investigators with the Social Security Administration asked Erie resident Loraleigh Helen Barber about her father.

She first told them "he was visiting family in the Catskills," Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Sellers said.

Barber's father, in fact, had been dead for more than 12 years, since December 2006.

And after his death, according to the investigators, Barber continued to collect her father's Social Security disability insurance benefits on his behalf.

She had been his designated payee when he was alive, but never told the Social Security administration that he had died.

The total amount taken, between Jan. 1, 2007, and Aug. 2, 2019, was $127,636, according to the federal indictment.

Barber, 50, pleaded guilty on Friday in U.S. District Court in Erie to one count of theft of government property.

U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter accepted the plea at a virtual hearing and set the sentencing for May 20. Barber is free on an unsecured bond of $25,000.

Barber faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison, though the sentence is likely to be far less under the federal sentencing guidelines, which account for a defendant's guilty plea and prior record, if any.

The federal probation office will conduct a pre-sentence investigation that will help determine the guideline sentence, according to an order Baxter issued on Friday in conjunction with the plea hearing. Sellers, the prosecutor handling the case, said the plea deal included no recommended sentence, and that he will ask Baxter to order Barber to pay $127,636 in restitution.

A federal grand jury indicted Barber in September 2019 on the one count of theft of government property.

On the same day Barber was indicted, the Pittsburgh-based U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, which includes Erie, said four other people had also been indicted on charges that they received Social Security benefits after the legal recipients had died. Barber was the only defendant from Erie.

Barber had served as a representative payee for her father but never advised the Social Security Administration of his death and "kept on receiving and spending the benefits intended for her father," the U.S. Attorney's Office said in announcing the indictment.

The Office of the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration investigated the cases, including Barber's, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Sellers said a routine audit showed investigators that Barber's father had died but that his Social Security benefits were still being paid. He said the audit prompted the investigators to interview Barber, and that she said initially said her father was in the Catskills.

Other recent court action

• North East resident Ramon K. Harris, 38, accused by Erie police of intentionally ramming a city police vehicle in the parking lot outside of the Erie police station on Jan. 8, waived the criminal charges filed against him to court at his preliminary hearing on Jan 24.

Harris waived a felony count of criminal mischief, misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering and disorderly conduct, and a summary count of reckless driving.

Erie police said surveillance video filmed the crash, which heavily damaged the patrol vehicle and the vehicle Harris was driving. Investigators said the belief that the crash was intentional was supported by video showing Harris circling Erie City Hall before the crash, and by his statements.

• Erie residents Nicole R. Mennicke, 41, and Adam I. Swift, 42, accused by Erie police of having suspected narcotics that were found during a search of their State Street variety store in early January, waived their criminal cases to court at their preliminary hearings on Wednesday.

Mennicke and Swift waived charges including five felony counts of possession with intent to deliver. Erie police drug investigators filed the charges following a search of Hey Jays New & Used, 2425 State St., on Jan. 5.

Investigators said they seized suspected methamphetamine, marijuana, THC oil, THC wax and THC edibles in an investigation into possible drug activity at the store. The case involved undercover surveillance and controlled buys that preceded the search, police said.

• Erie residents Hernan Hernandez, 41, and Jeremy J. Nunez, 21, accused by Erie police of attempting to rob a man at gunpoint in October, waived their criminal charges to court at their preliminary hearings on Thursday.

Hernandez and Nunez waived charges including a first-degree felony count of attempted robbery.

Erie police accuse the pair of confronting a man and attempting to rob him in a parking lot at West 25th and Sassafras streets on the early morning of Oct. 30.

• Union City resident Amira V. Sager, 31, charged by the Pennsylvania State Police with participating in two armed robberies in Erie County in January 2021, was sentenced on Jan. 21 in Erie County Treatment Court to serve 10 years of probation.

Sager was sentenced on her guilty pleas to a felony count of conspiracy to commit robbery and a misdemeanor count of terroristic threats.

State police accused Sager and Joshua M. Bingham of being involved in the robberies of a Kwik Fill and a Country Fair in Harborcreek Township on Jan. 16, 2021. The case against Bingham is awaiting trial.

• Erie resident Tayveon D. Gillespie, 18, who was 17 when Erie police charged him as an adult for shooting another teen outside of a Buffalo Road gas station in March, was sentenced in Erie County Court on Tuesday to four years and six months to 10 years in state prison.

Gillespie was sentenced on his guilty plea in October to a first-degree felony count of aggravated assault. Several other charges, including attempted homicide, were dropped under Gillespie's guilty plea.

Erie police accused Gillespie of shooting a 16-year-old boy in the groin during a confrontation outside of the Speed Check at 1505 Buffalo Road on March 22.

• In Crawford County, Ragene J. Gilbert, 26, accused by the Pennsylvania State Police of fatally shooting 21-year-old Destine R. Conyers in 2020, was held court on criminal homicide and a felony firearms charge following his preliminary hearing before Titusville District Judge Amy Nicols on Thursday.

State police investigators accuse Gilbert of killing Conyers, whose body was found along a rural road in Fairfield Township, south of Meadville, on Sept. 27, 2020. Authorities said Conyers, of Townville, died of gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNpalattella.

Contact Tim Hahn at thahn@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNhahn.