Bodybuilder collecting disability gets caught through Instagram posts, NY officials say
After suffering a fall at work in 2013, Anthony Ragusa’s life changed drastically, he reported on his application for disability benefits, state prosecutors in New York said. It hurt to bend over to tie his shoes, he had difficulty walking for more than 15 minutes and sitting for more than 30. Working, he wrote, was out of the question.
But Ragusa’s social media footprint told a different story.
On Instagram, he was an “avid weightlifter,” prosecutors said.
And his wife’s social media posts of the now-52-year-old lifting and training in gyms were used in court to charge him with fraudulently collecting more than $200,000 in disability benefits from 2015 to 2020, according to a news release from the New York Attorney General’s Office.
Ragusa pleaded guilty on June 14 before State Supreme Court Judge Anthony Senft Jr. in Suffolk County Court, according to the release. “Ragusa swindled taxpayers by claiming the benefits for himself, but was caught in his fraudulent scheme when his wife posted bodybuilding photos of him online,”
Ragusa collected income as the president and owner of a limousine service, WhiteStar Limousine, and began his bodybuilding journey, officials said.
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