Former Railroad Employee Sentenced to Two and a Half Years in Federal Prison for Fraudulently Obtaining Disability Benefits
Former Railroad Employee Sentenced to Two and a Half Years in Federal Prison for Fraudulently Obtaining Disability Benefits (Chicago, IL) — A former railroad engineer has been sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining disability benefits.
Scott Carlberg operated and managed a tanning salon in Wisconsin for six years while simultaneously receiving occupational disability benefits from the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board. In his application for benefits, Carlberg asserted that he could no longer perform any type of work due to numerous daily limitations, including short-term-memory loss, poor concentration, irritability, frequent loss of temper, and information-processing difficulties. After the benefits were approved, Carlberg misrepresented the nature of his work at the salon and lied about the income he received from it.
A federal jury in Chicago earlier this year convicted Carlberg, 53, of Menomonie, Wisc., on four counts of wire fraud. In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Edmond E. Chang on Tuesday ordered Carlberg to immediately pay more than $279,000 in restitution to the Railroad Retirement Board.
The sentence was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Douglas Williams, Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Investigations at the RRB, Robert W. “Wes” Wheeler, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI, and Mario Pinto, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard M. Rothblatt and Michelle Parthum.
Carlberg was one of six defendants charged in Chicago as part of an investigation into fraud perpetrated against benefit programs administered by the RRB to rail workers and their families. The five other defendants pleaded guilty and admitted fraudulently receiving benefits while simultaneously performing various types of work, including construction, landscaping, managing a donut shop, and captaining a charter fishing boat.
If you believe someone you know is receiving fraudulent disability benefits from the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board, you can contact the RRB OIG anonymously by calling 1-800-772-4528 or by sending an email to hotline@oig.rrb.gov.
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