Northshore Mortgage Broker Sentenced To Making False Statements to the Social Security Administration

NEW ORLEANS – U.S. Attorney Peter G. Strasser announced that JAMES BRIANT, age 68, a resident of Covington, Louisiana and mortgage broker and senior loan officer at Alpha Mortgage, LLC was sentenced Thursday, February 7, 2019 to three years probation for making false statements to the Social Security Administration  (SSA) in order to obtain Social Security Disability Payments. BRIANT was also ordered to pay approximately $134,000 in restitution to the Social Security Administration.

According to court documents, from on or about June 10, 2010, the defendant, BRIANT, applied for disability benefits from the Social Security Administration, a department and agency of the United States, for a back disorder and heart disease. Thereafter, in December of 2011, he began receiving monthly disability benefits of approximately $2,370, based on the representation that he was unable to work. During the time he received disability payments, the defendant, BRIANT, had an obligation to report any income he made to the SSA.

At a time unknown, but prior to September 2012, the defendant, BRIANT, began working as a loan officer and mortgage broker at Alpha Mortgage, L.L.C, earning a salary. He worked there through in or around June 2017 and never reported to the SSA that he was working or earned any income. On or about December 15, 2015, BRIANT completed a Social Security Disability form specifically, an SSA-Form 795, “Statement of Claimant” and submitted it to the SSA.  In this statement, he signed and certified, under penalty of perjury that he had not worked since 2011, knowing full well that this statement was materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent.

U.S. Attorney Strasser commended special agents of the Social Security Administration, Office of Inspector General, who investigated the case and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sharan Lieberman, who is in charge of the prosecution.