Southern Oregon Woman Sentenced for Using False Identity to Get Student Aid
A Southern Oregon woman was sentenced in federal court this week for using her deceased husband's identity to unlawfully claim federal student aid.
The US Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon reports 56-year-old Cynthia Pickering of Central Point was sentenced to 36 months of probation and ordered to pay more than $36,000 in restitution to the US Department of Education.
According to court documents, Pickering devised a scheme to use her deceased husband's personally identifiable information to submit multiple applications for federal student aid and enroll her husband at three different universities and colleges in Oregon. These fraudulent applications caused Western Oregon University, Eastern Oregon University and Rogue Community College to disperse $36,341 in federal student aid into Pickering's personal checking account.
To conceal her scheme, Pickering attended online classes pretending to be her former husband so that her husband would remain eligible for the student aid. She did what was necessary to pass first term courses at each institution and collect the funds between September 2017 and April 2019.
In October 2022, a federal grand jury in Medford returned a nine-count indictment charging Pickering with Wire Fraud, Aggravated Identity Theft and Student Loan Fraud. She was arrested at her residence in Central Point on November 15, 2022.
In August of this year, Pickering pleaded guilty to three counts of Wire Fraud and three counts of Student Aid Fraud.
Posted on 12/7/23 6:42AM by Sam Marsh
