PITTSBURGH (AP) — A northwestern Pennsylvania county councilman was sentenced Friday to a year and a day in federal prison for using a fraudulent Social Security number after his attempt to withdraw a guilty plea failed earlier this week.
U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin ordered Erie County Councilman Ebert “Bill” Beeman to report to prison within the next few weeks and to serve two years’ probation after completing the prison sentence.
Beeman, 63, who is well known for his ultra-libertarian brushes with the law, was disowned by the local Republican Party after his election to the council in 2009.
He tried to withdraw his March guilty plea in the criminal case on the grounds that he now believes he is innocent. He acknowledged using a fraudulent Social Security number he obtained in the 1970s using the name William G. Beeman to apply for two credit cards and two jobs since 2006. But his new attorney, a former federal prosecutor from Florida, said Beeman doesn’t believe he is guilty because he believes he hasn’t harmed anyone in what amounts to a “paper” crime.
Defense lawyer Jeffrey Del Fuoco noted that Beeman has paid into the government retirement system and is now receiving benefits, using his William G. Social Security number and identity.
“The same government who prosecuted him is now paying him for using the card,” Del Fuoco said.
The judge denied the request earlier this week and cited Beeman’s “lack of contrition” in imposing the prison sentence Friday.
“It is Mr. Beeman, unfortunately, and Mr. Beeman alone, who is his own worst enemy,” the Erie Times-News quoted the judge as saying from the bench.
Officials with the federal prosecutor’s office did not immediately return calls and emails for comment.
The agency and other experts have acknowledged that roughly 20 million Americans may have more than one Social Security number, although that usually results from confusing personal information on an application; intentionally using a false name is still a crime.
“If we can determine more than one number belongs to the same person, we cross-reference those numbers in our records,” and that one person is paid the benefits to which they’re entitled under multiple ID numbers, the Social Security Administration says on its website.
Social Security spokeswoman Terri Lewis told The Associated Press she can’t comment on Beeman’s specific case because of confidentiality laws, and said it would be wrong to draw broader conclusions about the way people with multiple ID numbers are treated from one “isolated case.”
Along with the criminal case, Beeman is fighting the IRS over the seizure of four properties to pay $2.1 million in back taxes and penalties he allegedly owes. He also was once jailed for driving without a license; he contends the state doesn’t have a right to demand his Social Security number and other personal information in order to issue a license.
