[taco]

Man Accused Of Faking Retardation -- For 20 Years
Wednesday, December 6, 2006 at 12:09am

TACOMA, Wash. -- For nearly 20 years -- ever since Pete Costello was 8 -- his mother has collected disability benefits on his behalf.
In meetings with Social Security officials and psychologists, he appeared mentally retarded and unable to communicate. His mother insisted he couldn't read or write, shower, take care of himself or drive a car.
But now prosecutors said it was all a huge fraud, and they have video of Costello contesting a traffic ticket to prove it.

He's like any other person trying to get out of a traffic ticket," Assistant U.S. Attorney Norman Barbosa said Tuesday. Pete and Rosie Marie Costello were indicted in September on charges of conspiracy to defraud the government and Social Security fraud, and the case was unsealed Tuesday. The Vancouver pair were scheduled to appear in federal court in Tacoma on Tuesday. Barbosa said he planned to file with the court two videos of Pete Costello taken this year: In one, he allegedly feigns retardation during an interview with Social Security workers; the other is of him contesting the traffic ticket in a courtroom earlier this year.
The indictment accuses Costello of faking -- or at least exaggerating -- retardation since August 1997, because that is what prosecutors are confident they can prove, Barbosa said. But the pair first received benefits 10 years before that.
The benefits cited in the indictment totaled $111,000.
Barbosa said the government does not know whether Costello is retarded to some degree, but he clearly has been "exaggerating whatever he may have, if any."
"This person isn't being honest with the government about his condition," Barbosa said. "It makes it impossible to sort out."
It was not immediately known if the Costellos had obtained attorneys

[TacoSusio]

$111,000 over 10 years? wow, they were really rolling in the bucks. glad the government wasted tens of thousands more to investigate this and will probably waste even more incarerating them.

of course they're retarded, or they would have ripped off the government the smart way, by selling them 10 hammers for $100K or 1 toilet seat...

[elroypornlab]

Yea folks on SSI are really the a drain on society makin that big 6 grand a year I make that in a month