. >> sandra kimbro: i'm a... a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and now a felon. >> pelley: like a lot of people, she took in her aging, ill mother, and had a joint bank account with her. when her mother died, the disability benefits kept coming. when did she die? >> kimbro: she died... 1984. >> pelley: when she died, did you report her death to social security? >> kimbro: i did not. would have been taken care of by the funeral director at some point. >> pelley: were you surprised that these benefits kept coming to you? >> kimbro: no, not initially, because i had had a conversation with my mom prior to her death that i would be entitled to the benefits. so i had just assumed and went along with that, thinking that i was entitled. >> pelley: and what did it come to? >> kimbro: over a 30-year period, $160,000. >> pelley: though she took the checks for three decades, otherwise, sandra kimbro is no one's idea of a thief. she and her husband had good full-time jobs through retirement, a solid middle class life, and rais

. >> sandra kimbro: i'm a... a >> pelley: like a lot of people, she took in her aging, illt bank account with her. when her mother died, the disability benefits kept coming. when did she die? died... 1984. d you report her death to social security? >> kimbro: i did not. >> pelley: why not? >> kimbro: i thought perhaps it would have been taken care of by at some point. >> pelley: were you surprised that these benefits kept coming to you? >> kimbro: no, not initially,conversation with my mom prior to her death that i would be entitled to the benefits.d and went along with that, thinking that i was entitled. ome to? >> kimbro: over a 30-year period, $160,000. >> pelley: though she took the otherwise, sandra kimbro is no one's idea of a thief. full-time jobs throughd middle class life, and raised two children. but then came an unexpected call from social security.m social security must've asked where your mother was? to him immediately. i didn't try to say that she was alive. i said that she was deceased. >> pelley:

reach 100 years of age, and try to reach out and see if they're, you know, doing well. >> pelley: sandra kimbro's mother would have been 93 and hadn't used medicare in 30 years. kimbro was charged with theft, at at least a year in prison. she spoke with us, she said, to warn others. >> kimbro: i've spent 66 years, no criminal history. haven't done nothing wrong, lived a good life, did everything i was supposed to do, be a law-abiding citizen, and succumbed to this human error. and this is where i am. and obviously, "felon" is not compatible with the other three things that i said, but it is my reality. >> pelley: inspector general patrick o'carroll says that social security is managing about 150 convictions a year, a fraction of the total. but it adds up to about $55 million in fraud. >> o'carroll: what we're trying to do is get the word out there, is, if you do take it and you're not supposed to do it, we're going to find you, we're going to arrest you, and we're going to get the money back. >> pelley: over the last decade, o'carroll has made 70 recommendations to social security to reform the d