Man earned $330,000 working construction while on disability in WY, feds say
A Wyoming man accused of working in construction for years after being granted disability benefits from a railroad injury is heading to prison, federal prosecutors said.
James M. Alexander, from Gillette, was ordered to serve a year behind bars in connection with theft of government property and filing a false income tax return, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Wyoming said in a June 24 news release.
McClatchy News reached out to his attorney June 25 and was awaiting a response.
Alexander, now 63, was hurt while working for BNSF Railway, and the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board granted him “total and permanent disability benefits,” prosecutors said.
Those benefits are for railroad employees who can no longer work a regular job because of their injury, according to prosecutors.
Alexander was supposed to let the board know if he got better or if he earned other income, prosecutors said.
But for more than eight years starting in January 2016, he “failed to report to (the board) that his disability did not prevent him from working and/or that he had received substantial income for construction/remodeling work he performed,” according to prosecutors.
For example, prosecutors said, he didn’t report the $330,830 he received from a construction company between January 2016 and August 2023.
He also “admitted to filing false returns that underreported his true income, including the income he received from a construction company,” prosecutors said.
Along with time behind bars, Alexander was ordered to serve two years of supervised release and pay $409,422 in restitution, prosecutors said.
Gillette is about a 245-mile drive north from Cheyenne.
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