A 58-year-old woman has been convicted of stealing $120,000 in Social Security payments by fraudulently using her dead mother’s Social Security number.
Terri Sue Potter was convicted by an Adams County jury Tuesday on three counts of felony theft, according to an Adams County District Attorney’s Office media release Wednesday.
Potter stolen the money over a 25-year period, the DA’s office said, from 1987 to 2012.
Potter’s mother, born in 1911, obtained a Social Security card in 1937, the first year the federal program began.
The theft was uncovered by the Social Security Administration’s Centenarian Program, which contacts people over the age 100 to see if they need additional benefits. Program employees discovered Helen Browning Potter died in 1987 and an investigation ensued.
Terri Potter, who is free on $10,000 bond, is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 2.
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822, knicholson@denverpost.com or
