NC Postal Worker Pleads to Lying About Work While Gaining $500K in Benefits

A 74-year-old former postal worker in North Carolina is facing up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to falsifying information about her post-injury employment and costing the federal workers’ compensation program as much as $500,000 in indemnity and medical benefit payments.

Sandra Cannon Throneburg, of Morgantown, entered a plea agreement last week in federal court in Asheville. A sentencing date has not been set.

Throneburg, who had worked for the postal service for 26 years, injured her ankle in 2015 while working as a rural mail carrier. Five years later, the federal Office of Workers’ Compensation Program sent her forms asking about her employment situation since the injury. She answered that she had not worked at all in the previous 15 months, the felony information sheet indicates.

After receiving an anonymous tip, federal investigators determined that the woman had worked from 2016 to 2020 as a clerk at an accounting firm in Morgantown. All the while, she had received $261,412 in wage-replacement payments and some $278,673 in medical benefits, the court documents show.

The Federal Employees’ Compensation Act requires workers to truthfully report their employment and paychecks while receiving workers’ comp benefits.

“Most postal employees who collect workers’ compensation benefits have legitimate claims. A small percentage, however, abuse the system and cost the Postal Service millions of dollars in fraudulent claims and enforcement costs,” Kathleen Woodson, executive special agent in charge for the Postal Service’s Inspector General, said in a statement. “Therefore, USPS OIG Special Agents will continue to relentlessly pursue those identified as fraudulently collecting workers’ compensation funds from the Postal Service.”

Besides prison time, Throneburg could be ordered to pay restitution to the federal workers’ compensation program.

Topics North Carolina