Woman accused of keeping sister in cage wanted for defrauding Social Security
A former Centerville woman who has been charged with keeping her care-dependent sister in a cage has been indicted on accusations she defrauded Social Security.
Leona Biser, 51, a federal fugitive, was indicted on accusations she accepted her sister’s Social Security payments and spent them on personal expenses rather than the care of the victim, the U.S. attorney’s office in Pittsburgh said.
Biser was arrested Jan. 15 by the state attorney general’s office on charges, including endangering the welfare of a care-dependent person and false imprisonment after investigators found her sister in a wooden cage-like structure in Biser’s home.
The sister, Loretta Lancaster, who was 53 years old at the time, was found with only a dirty mattress in the cage at a duplex in the Vestaburg section of Centerville. The house was later condemned.
Evidence at the time showed that Lancaster’s medical condition had deteriorated and that she was being fed milk in a baby bottle and denied solid food. She has since been relocated to a personal care home in Pittsburgh.
Biser is wanted in Washington County Court of Common Plea for failing to appear before a judge on the state charges.
The two-count federal indictment announced Friday did not list the amount of fraud in the case, a court spokeswoman said. She accepted the benefits on behalf of Lancaster from October 2018 to September 2019, the indictment indicates.
Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to contact the U.S. Marshals communications center at 1-800-336-0102 or send an online tip to: www.usmarshals.gov/tips/index.html.