A New York bodybuilder once claimed he could not lift more than 10 pounds – and spent years competing on stage before investigators caught him.
Now a Long Island man just ran the exact same scam, and social media handed prosecutors everything they needed.
Raymond Phillips bench pressed and squatted his way through three years of your disability checks – and the SSA Inspector General just caught every rep on camera.
Phillips Claimed He Could Not Lift His Dominant Arm
Raymond Phillips, a 40-year-old former NYPD officer from Huntington, filed paperwork with New York's Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance in August 2018 claiming a weightlifting injury had destroyed his dominant arm.
He said he underwent surgery.
He said he could not perform routine daily activities without assistance.
He said the pain was so severe he could not work in any capacity.
The Social Security Administration approved his claim in May 2021, backdating it to 2018.
From that moment through December 2024, Phillips collected $100,000 in disability payments from American taxpayers.
Meanwhile, he was posting competition videos and advertising his personal training business on Facebook and Instagram – the same dominant arm he claimed was surgically destroyed lifting heavy iron on camera.
https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/2077112126078886286?s=20
The SSA Inspector General's office found footage of Phillips bench pressing and squatting at The American Pro 2023 while his written filings to the SSA certified he was too injured to work.
"Raymond Phillips shamelessly collected benefits meant for disabled New Yorkers while boasting his weightlifting achievements on social media," New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
Phillips now faces a three-count indictment – second-degree grand larceny and two counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree.
Grand larceny carries a maximum of 15 years in prison.
This Is Not a Glitch in the System – This Is the System
Phillips is not an isolated case.
This is a recurring scam, and fraudsters keep running it because the math works in their favor.
In 2019, a competitive New York bodybuilder pleaded guilty to Social Security disability fraud after collecting payments for years while claiming he could not lift more than 10 pounds – all while competing on stage.
In June 2023, a former NYPD detective pleaded guilty to fraudulently collecting more than $156,000 in disability benefits from SSA.
In July 2025, a Staten Island man was arrested and convicted for fraudulently collecting over $200,000 in Social Security benefits.
In one of the largest cases in American history, federal prosecutors indicted 106 defendants – including retired NYPD and FDNY officers – for funneling hundreds of millions of dollars out of Social Security disability programs.
Those defendants claimed they rarely left their homes while they were piloting helicopters, playing blackjack in Las Vegas, and working food stands at Manhattan festivals.
The SSA paid out over $126 billion in benefits in January 2025 alone.
At that scale, fraudsters calculate – correctly, in many cases – that nobody is watching closely enough to catch them.
https://twitter.com/justthinkit/status/2077441543657717990?s=20
Phillips deleted his social media accounts after his arrest.
He deleted them too late.
Trump Is Fixing What Biden Let Rot
The Phillips arrest happened because investigators were looking.
That is not a small thing.
During the Biden years, the SSA's own Office of Inspector General flagged nearly $9 billion in funds that could be recovered or better used – and the agency took no action.
Overpayments in the disability programs alone ran $3.3 billion annually.
The system was hemorrhaging your money, and the enforcement apparatus was understaffed by design.
Trump changed that.
In April 2025, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum expanding SSA's full-time fraud prosecution program to at least 50 U.S. Attorney Offices nationwide – placing dedicated federal prosecutors inside those offices specifically to pursue Social Security fraud referrals.
The SSA Inspector General's Cooperative Disability Investigations program, which embeds federal agents with state and local law enforcement to catch exactly the kind of fraud Phillips ran, has now identified over $8.5 billion in projected taxpayer savings since its inception.
In the first half of fiscal year 2026 alone, those investigations generated over $57 million in projected savings to SSA's disability programs.
Real disabled Americans – the ones who genuinely cannot lift their dominant arm, who genuinely need that monthly check – deserve to have people like Raymond Phillips behind bars.
Donald Trump's prosecutors are making sure that happens.
Sources:
- New York Attorney General Letitia James, "Attorney General James Announces Arrest of Long Island Man for Fraudulently Obtaining Disability Benefits," Office of the Attorney General, July 14, 2026.
- SSA Office of Inspector General, "New York Competitive Bodybuilder Pleads Guilty to Social Security Disability Fraud," SSA OIG News Releases, October 11, 2019.
- SSA Office of Inspector General, "Cooperative Disability Investigations," SSA OIG, accessed July 2026.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "106 Defendants Indicted in Social Security Disability Fraud Costing Federal Taxpayers Hundreds of Millions," ICE News Releases.
- SSA Office of Inspector General, "New Federal Prosecutor Targets Social Security, Other Government Frauds," SSA OIG News Releases, March 6, 2026.
- Congressional Research Service, "Social Security Fraud Overview," Congress.gov, March 25, 2025.