A 74-year-old former postal worker in North Carolina is facing up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to falsifying information about her post-injury employment and costing the federal workers’ compensation program as much as $500,000 in indemnity and medical benefit payments.
Sandra Cannon Throneburg, of Morgantown, entered a plea agreement last week in federal court in Asheville. A sentencing date has not been set.
Throneburg, who had worked for the postal service for 26 years, injured her ankle in 2015 while working as a rural mail carrier. Five years later, the federal Office of Workers’ Compensation Program sent her forms asking about her employment situation since the injury. She answered that she had not worked at all in the previous 15 months, the felony information sheet indicates…