WILMINGTON - Marques Fountain, 42, of Seaford, was sentenced on Wednesday to 30 days imprisonment followed by three years of supervised release for defrauding the Social Security Administration, authorities said.
According to U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss, nearly $150,000 was obtained over more than a decade. The sentence was pronounced by Chief U.S. District Judge Colm F. Connolly.
According to court documents, Fountain collected another man’s SSA retirement benefits after the beneficiary died. The man, for whom Fountain served as a caretaker, passed away in 2009, Mr. Weiss said.
The SSA, however, continued to deposit the deceased man’s SSA retirement benefits into a bank account controlled by Fountain, according to authorities.
For more than a decade, Fountain accessed and used these SSA retirement benefits for his personal expenses. After admitting that he knew stealing the money was wrong, Fountain pleaded guilty in October 2021, according to authorities.
Mr. Weiss said, “Social Security Administration benefits provide much needed assistance to the most vulnerable members of our society. Mr. Fountain spent a decade stealing from the federal government.
“Thanks to the work of the SSA Office of the Inspector General, Fountain will now spend time in federal prison and be required to pay full restitution to the government.”
“Mr. Fountain chose to defraud the Social Security Administration rather than report the beneficiary’s death to use for his personal gain for more than ten years. Today’s sentencing shows that concealing death reports from SSA to obtain deceased benefits is a serious criminal offense.”
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