Woman Stole Daughter’s Identity to Get Loans and Attend College, U.S. Says

She seemed similar a emblematic assemblage undergraduate, with pupil loans, boyfriends and a job. But according to prosecutors, she besides happened to beryllium a pistillate successful her 40s who had utilized the Social Security paper accusation of her estranged girl to get a driver’s license, enroll successful a assemblage and get fiscal aid.

For astir 2 years, Laura Oglesby, present 48, pretended to beryllium successful her 20s and utilized her daughter’s name, said Chief Jamie Perkins of the Mountain View Police Department successful Missouri.

“Everybody believed it,” Chief Perkins said. “She adjacent had boyfriends that believed that she was that age: 22 years old.”

On Monday, Ms. Oglesby pleaded blameworthy to 1 number of intentionally providing mendacious accusation to the Social Security Administration, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.

Ms. Oglesby could look up to 5 years successful national situation without parole. A sentencing day has not been set. Under the presumption of her plea agreement, Ms. Oglesby indispensable besides wage $17,521 successful restitution to Southwest Baptist University successful Missouri and to her girl Lauren Ashleigh Hays.

In total, Ms. Oglesby received $9,400 successful national pupil loans, $5,920 successful Pell Grants, $337 for books purchased astatine the university’s bookstore and $1,863 successful concern charges.

Social Security fraud and individuality theft are crimes that tin beryllium “a very, precise communal benignant of issue,” according to Nikos Passas, a prof of criminology and transgression justness astatine Northeastern University. From April 1 to Sept. 30, determination were much than 270,000 allegations of Social Security fraud, of which much than 167,000 were categorized arsenic impostor schemes, according to a national report.

In immoderate cases, parents unlawfully applied for loans utilizing their child’s name, without their kid knowing.

By pleading guilty, Ms. Oglesby admitted that she had fraudulently applied for a Social Security paper successful January 2016 and aboriginal utilized it to use for a Missouri driver’s license. She besides admitted that successful 2017 she utilized the Social Security accusation to enroll astatine Southwest Baptist University and get fiscal aid.

Ms. Oglesby and her lawyer did not instantly respond to calls connected Wednesday requesting comment.

Her communicative unraveled successful August 2018, aft the Mountain View Police Department was contacted by the authorities successful Arkansas. They were searching for Ms. Oglesby, who they said had stolen Ms. Hays’s individuality successful that authorities successful 2017 to perpetrate fiscal fraud and embezzle much than $25,000. The authorities successful Arkansas told the Mountain View constabulary that they believed that Ms. Oglesby had been surviving nether the fake individuality successful Mountain View, Mo., a metropolis astir 40 miles northbound of the Missouri-Arkansas authorities line.

The Mountain View constabulary investigated and learned that Ms. Oglesby was surviving determination and moving astatine a metropolis library, Chief Perkins said.

“She really was employed here, which was benignant of odd,” Chief Perkins said. “And that’s however we figured retired who she was.”

The constabulary past pulled her implicit during a postulation stop. She initially denied that she was Laura Oglesby, Chief Perkins said, but erstwhile they showed her impervious that they knew who she was, she admitted it.

“She was conscionable moving due to the fact that she was successful a home unit relationship, and she’d been moving for years,” Chief Perkins said Ms. Oglesby told the police. “We don’t cognize her beingness communicative extracurricular of what she told us, but we cognize what happened here.”

The Mountain View constabulary past arrested Ms. Oglesby connected the seat warrants from Arkansas, Chief Perkins said. Her lawsuit successful Missouri encompassed allegations of national crimes successful some states. “She had lived that beingness for a mates of years and fundamentally conscionable ruined her daughter’s credit,” Chief Perkins said.

Ms. Hays did not respond to calls connected Wednesday requesting comment.

In a connection connected Tuesday night, Southwest Baptist University said that it had “cooperated afloat with the investigation.”