A 32-year-old woman has admitted that while serving prison time in southern Minnesota for identity theft she repeatedly dipped into her dead mother's bank account and stole more than $23,000 in Social Security benefits.
Nefertiti Randall, 32, an inmate at the federal prison in Waseca, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis to theft of government money or property in thefts that spanned nearly three years and began immediately after her mother died.
From June 2009 through April 2012, Randall stole money that was being deposited automatically into a bank account intended for her mother, but to which Randall had access.
Randall's mother, Beaudel Crawford, died in June 2009 at age 49 following numerous medical problems, her family said.
Two months later, Randall, of Philadelphia, began serving an unrelated multiyear identity-theft sentence in Waseca after being convicted in federal court and sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for stealing and using the credit-card numbers of nine cardholders.
She also was convicted and sentenced in fraud cases in 2002 and 2006.
Randall faces a potential maximum penalty of 10 years in prison in her latest case. Sentencing has yet to be scheduled.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482
