Arlington man sentenced to 21 months for Social Security fraud

A former employee of the Social Security Administration was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Friday.

Carwin Shaw, 33, of Arlington was also ordered to pay more than $78,000 in restitution for a scheme he and three others concocted to defraud the government, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office.

Shaw and co-defendants Amanda Johnson, 35; April Harvey, 36; and Lanusha Lemmons, 25, all of Arlington, were indicted in May 2014 on one count each of conspiracy to defraud the government and one count each of theft of government funds.

Lemmons pleaded guilty and was sentenced this month to two years of probation. A trial date of April 27 is set for Johnson and Harvey.

Shaw, a Social Security service representative who worked in the Grand Prairie office, cut second checks to his co-conspirators after they falsely reported that their initial checks had been lost or stolen. Shaw then split the second check with his co-conspirators, according to federal court documents.

Shaw persuaded other Social Security employees, often his friends, to co-sign the administrative waiver needed to stop repayment to the government after the duplicate checks were cashed, a federal indictment says.

“Each co-conspirator was the representative payee for one minor or otherwise incompetent Social Security beneficiary,” the news release said.

Shaw also accessed records for several beneficiaries and altered or deleted verified income from the agency’s database, increasing the amount of monthly benefits payable to each beneficiary and generating lump-sum back payments to those beneficiaries.

This report includes material from Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published March 20, 2015 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Arlington man sentenced to 21 months for Social Security fraud."