Woman pleads guilty to defrauding Social Security

Farmer helped get ineligible inmate disability payments

TEXARKANA, Ark. — A woman who helped an inmate illegally receive federal disability payments while he was serving time in an Arkansas prison in 2017 has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit theft of government benefits.

Debbie Day Farmer, age unavailable, pleaded guilty Tuesday in the Texarkana Division of the Western District of Arkansas. She is currently free on a $5,000 unsecured appearance bond.

Farmer filled out paperwork and signed the name of Robert Allen Merrell so he could continue receiving payments despite being incarcerated, according to a plea agreement. Merrell was ineligible to receive the benefits as an incarcerated person.

The plea agreement states Farmer agreed with Merrell to falsify documents beginning in January 2017 through March 2018.

“Debbie Farmer Day agreed, with Robert Allen Merrell to prevent the Social Security Administration from learning that Merrell was incarcerated in the Arkansas Department of Correction and was thus ineligible for continued SSA disability benefit payments made to him in Ashdown, Arkansas, to which he had previously been entitled,” the plea agreement states.

Day used some of the money Merrell received to pay her own bills and some she deposited in Merrell’s prison commissary account. Recordings of jailhouse conversations between the two provided evidence of the

scheme.

“Day admitted that she knew that Merrell’s incarceration would cause his SSA payments to cease, that she distributed Merrell’s SSA disability benefit funds at his request during his incarceration, and that she filled out the forms and returned them to the SSA Office in Texarkana, which is located in the Western District of Arkansas, to continue the payments,” the plea agreement states. Day allegedly defrauded SSA out of $11,025. Day faces up to five years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000 at sentencing. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey.