Former postal worker Luann Middleton, from Glen Cove, convicted of stealing nearly $1M in disability benefits

A former Glen Cove postal worker was convicted of wire fraud Friday for raking in nearly $1 million by submitting bogus workers' compensation claims for over two decades, saying she could stand, sit or walk for “zero hours” after a back injury, federal officials said. 

Luann Middleton, 72, claimed full disability in 1997, but was recorded on video engaging in activities she claimed she could not perform, such as lifting a bag of potting soil and reaching for objects high and low, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella Jr. said in a news release. She had received more than $900,000 in workers’ compensation benefits.

“For more than 20 years and until her lies caught up to her, the defendant refused to come to work and instead collected tax-free disability benefits for a highly-exaggerated injury,” Nocella said in a statement.

In August 1997, when she was in her mid-40s, Middleton, who records show worked at the mail facility at Kennedy Airport, filed a claim with the Department of Labor on the grounds “that she had sustained an injury to her lower back while performing her duties as a postal clerk,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

About 15 months after she started receiving the benefits, she “briefly returned to work in a limited duty capacity,” the release added. A doctor “found that she was in fact capable of working." But Middleton "then claimed she had a recurrence of her back injury, which rendered her totally and permanently disabled.” Her benefits, worth about two-thirds of her annual pay, tax-free, kicked in again.

Over the next several years, until September 2022, Middleton sent the Postal Service and the Labor Department medical evaluations claiming she was totally disabled, Nocella said. She claimed she “could sit, stand, walk, bend, lift and reach above her shoulders for zero hours and could not participate in any physical activities because of her excruciating back pain,” the release said. But between October 2015 and March 2022, she was recorded cleaning out a garage, standing for more than an hour during a cookie decorating class and lifting grocery, laundry and potting soil bags.

After four days, a jury found Middleton guilty of wire fraud before U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown. She faces up to 20 years in prison and financial penalties when sentenced.

Masooma Javaid, her defense attorney, could not be immediately reached for comment late Friday. A Postal Service spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.