Newspaper

Raylene J. Maloun, 69, Walton, was convicted Wednesday on one count of defrauding the Social Security Administration (SSA) and one count of theft of U.S. government funds by a federal jury in Wichita, U. S. Attorney Barry Grissom announced.

The trial began Tuesday in U.S. District Court here before District Judge J. Thomas Marten. Marten set sentencing in the case for July 11. Maloun faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on the SSA count and ten years on the theft count.

Maloun was indicted Oct. 13, 2011. She was alleged to have concealed from the SSA the fact she was married to one man while collecting SSA benefits on the account of a former husband. She told the SSA she wasn’t currently married when she applied for benefits in 2004, which allowed her to collect auxiliary spouse benefits on a husband she had divorced in 1981.

Then, in 2011, after the death of her current husband of 29 years, Maloun filed for widow’s benefits on his account. That alerted the SSA to possible fraud and the case was investigated, Grissom said.