6 Months in Prison for Oak Bluffs Social Security Fraudster

MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MA — An Oak Bluffs man who admitted to stealing over $160,000 in social security benefits received six months in prison at sentencing this week.

Vernon Harris, 63, on Thursday pleaded guilty to theft and tax evasion in federal court in Boston.

Prosecutors said in 2002, Harris applied for Social Security benefits, claiming he stopped working in 2001 due to disabilities. In reality, however, Harris ran SilkRoad Ligistics—a trucking brokerage firm—out of his home. He wrote himself checks totaling as much as $70,000 some years while he collected disability and ran the business through 2015, prosecutors said. He also falsified tax returns.

U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock on Thursday sentenced Harris to six months in prison and three years supervised release. He was ordered to pay restitution to the Social Security Administration and about $21,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.

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Photo: Timothy Pearce via Flickr