photo by: Contributed

The federal courthouse in Kansas City, Kansas.

A Tonganoxie woman who stole a dead relative’s identity to collect more than $450,000 in government benefits has been sentenced to more than a year in prison.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas announced in a news release Wednesday that Tamera Ruth Powers, 68, was sentenced to 15 months after pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud. In the release, the office said she collected benefits she wasn’t entitled to from a number of federal and state programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Social Security Disability and Medicaid, for 10 years.

“Public benefits provide a safety net to those who need and legally qualify for the assistance,” U.S. Attorney Ryan A. Kriegshauser said in the release. “Defrauding the system by misappropriating taxpayer money is a violation of public trust, and it’s only a matter of time until we find the perpetrators and hold them accountable.”

The release said Powers stole the identity of a relative named Minda Sue Rakestraw, who died in 1977. She then used this woman’s identity to get a state ID card and to get married, changing the name to Minda Sue Landis in the process.

After this, Powers maintained two separate bank accounts, one in her real name and one using the alias, the release said. She then applied for Social Security Disability benefits in 2005 using the alias.

Then, several years later, Powers began applying for a variety of federal and state benefits in her real name.

First, the release said she applied for Social Security Disability benefits in 2012 without disclosing that she’d already applied for them under the alias.

Then, it said, she applied for Supplemental Security Income, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, SNAP and Medicaid benefits in 2013 and Social Security retirement insurance benefits in 2023. In each of these cases, she either failed to disclose or lied about her marital status, her household income or that she had used other names in the past. This led to her either receiving benefits that she wasn’t eligible to receive or getting more benefits than she was actually entitled to, the release said.

In total, the release said Powers collected almost $138,000 from the federal government and more than $315,000 from the state of Kansas that she wasn’t entitled to. She was ordered to pay just over $452,000 in restitution.

“This sentencing sends a strong message that schemes to defraud the Medicaid, SNAP, LIEAP and Social Security Disability programs will not be tolerated,” Kansas Inspector General Steven D. Anderson said in the release.