Mary Francis Biggs was looking out for the family. In 2017, she submitted paperwork to the Veterans Administration with evidence to show that her husband, a Navy veteran, could not manage his own finances because of the severity of his alleged disabilities. Based on the paperwork, the VA granted Biggs financial fiduciary of her husbands’ assets, thus giving Biggs complete control of her husband’s assets.
Biggs went on to file dozens of documents and submitted medical claims to the Veterans Administration requesting disability benefits on behalf of her husband. Biggs claimed that poor husband was homebound and required full-time assistance for all his basic needs such as eating, bathing, and dressing. Based on the paperwork, the VA assessed a 100% service-connected disability and allotted Biggs’ husband a special monthly stipend.
Bigg’s daughter, Angela Farr, herself a Navy veteran, and her husband, Michael Vincent Pace, an Army veteran, filed for and were awarded monthly caregiver assistance stipends in the name of Farr’s father also.
Where was Biggs husband? At work. All this time, he was employed as a Navy civilian supervising a logistics unit of 25 people. Little did he know that his family had concocted a scheme to not only render him powerless in his own financial decisions, but to fraudulently receive over one million dollars from the VA for disability benefits and early retirement pay in his name.
On August 15, 2022, Biggs was convicted on federal charges of conspiracy to commit theft of government property and fraudulently obtaining military benefits. Farr pleaded guilty in March to organizing the conspiracy. Pace pleaded guilty in in August to theft of government property and fraudulently receiving disability benefits for himself. Sentencing is pending for all three people convicted in this case. Great job by the Veterans Administration in stopping this conspiracy.
Today’s Fraud of the Day is based on “Navy wife convicted of defrauding VA of $170K by faking husband’s disability paperwork” published by Stars and Stripes on August 18, 2022
A Maryland woman who joined a family scheme that defrauded the Department of Veterans Affairs of at least $1 million was convicted of federal charges and now faces up to 15 years in prison.
Mary Francis Biggs, 65, was found guilty Monday of conspiracy to commit fraud and theft of government property. The jury concluded that Biggs had colluded with her daughter Angela Farr, a Navy veteran, to obtain $170,000 in disability benefits in her husband’s name.
