FirstAlerts
Crime & Courts

Four Sentenced in Separate Fraud Cases Across Three States

Sentences ranged from suspended terms to 17 years in separate fraud cases in South Dakota, North Carolina, and Georgia.

3 reports on this incident · first at Aug 21, 2026, 2:20 p.m. ET

By AI ReporterWritten Aug 27, 2026, 11:52 a.m. ET
On August 21, 2026, courts in three states four people in separate fraud cases, according to official records and news reports. In South Dakota, Sharon Laraye Monson was in connection with defrauding the state's Medicaid program. The South Dakota Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud, Abuse and Neglect Services Unit reported a suspended 10-year prison sentence, 10 years of probation, and $500,000 in restitution. The charges included one felony count of grand theft, three counts of unlawfully obtaining benefits from a medical assistance program, and other counts. The statutory maximum was , according to drgnews.com. In North Carolina, Lisa Roberts-Allen, 64, was in to a minimum of 75 months and a maximum of 102 months in prison, as reported by wlos.com. She was convicted of forging deeds and obtaining property by false pretenses. The N.C. Secretary of State's Office was among the investigating agencies. In Georgia, Kayricka Wortham, 35, and Brittany Hudson, 40, were in the . Atlanta News First reported that Wortham received . All four defendants are presumed innocent unless they pleaded guilty; the reports do not specify whether any pleaded guilty. The cases were prosecuted by the respective district attorneys' offices and the South Dakota Attorney General's unit.

Earlier reports

  1. Aug 21, 2026, 2:22 p.m. ET

    Massachusetts Woman Sentenced for Bank Fraud

    BOSTON – A Charlton, Mass. woman was sentenced on August 21, 2026, in federal court in Worcester for fraudulently obtaining Social Security benefits and pension payments. Gina M. Cummings, 61, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman to one day of prison deemed served, three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $110,428 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.

    In May 2026, Cummings pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud. In December 2025, she was arrested and charged. From January 2020 through July 2025, Cummings fraudulently obtained approximately $110,428 in Social Security benefits, private pension payments and COVID Economic Impact Payments, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

    Cummings had access to the checkbook of a Social Security beneficiary and pensioner who died in August 2019. She failed to report the beneficiary's death to the Social Security Administration, the pension plan and the bank where the funds were deposited. Instead, Cummings accessed the improperly paid funds by forging the deceased beneficiary's name on 84 checks and regularly depleted the account funds through recurring bill payments, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

    United States Attorney Leah B. Foley and Amy Connelly, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General, Office of Investigations, Boston Field Division made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Nagelberg of the Major Crimes Unit prosecuted the case.

  2. Aug 21, 2026, 2:20 p.m. ETFirst report

    Massachusetts Woman Sentenced for Bank Fraud

    BOSTON – A Charlton, Mass. woman was sentenced on August 21, 2026, in federal court in Worcester for fraudulently obtaining Social Security benefits and pension payments. Gina M. Cummings, 61, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman to one day of prison deemed served, three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay $110,428 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts.

    In May 2026, Cummings pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud. In December 2025, she was arrested and charged. From January 2020 through July 2025, Cummings fraudulently obtained approximately $110,428 in Social Security benefits, private pension payments and COVID Economic Impact Payments, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

    Cummings had access to the checkbook of a Social Security beneficiary and pensioner who died in August 2019. She failed to report the beneficiary's death to the Social Security Administration, the pension plan and the bank where the funds were deposited. Instead, Cummings accessed the improperly paid funds by forging the deceased beneficiary's name on 84 checks and regularly depleted the account funds through recurring bill payments.

    United States Attorney Leah B. Foley and Amy Connelly, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General, Office of Investigations, Boston Field Division made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Nagelberg of the Major Crimes Unit prosecuted the case.

Was this report accurate and useful?

Sources

Revision history

  1. Version 121 Aug 2026, 18:22current

    First published.

  2. Version 121 Aug 2026, 18:20current

    First published.

  3. Version 127 Aug 2026, 15:52current

    First published.

How we work

This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.

Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.

Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.

None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.