Mom Pleads Guilty To Stealing Daughter's Identity, Dating Younger Guys
By Hannah DeRuyter
December 13, 2021
A Missouri mother is facing charges after she plead guilty to stealing her daughter's identity.
According to the New York Post, 48-year-old Laura Oglesby is facing jail time after posing as her daughter, Lauren Hays, to get student loans, enroll in college and catfish college-aged men into relationships.
The scheme went on for over two years. It began in 2016 when Oglesby applied for a Social Security card in her daughter's name. After receiving the Social Security card, she began using her 22-year-old daughter's identity.
"Everyone believed it. She even had boyfriends that believed that she was that age - 22 years old," Mountain View Police Chief Jamie Perkins told the New York Times.
Oglesby also created a Snapchat account where she pretended to be the 22-year-old and used filters that made her look younger.
A young Mountain View couple took Oglesby in after she convinced them that she had escaped from a domestic violence situation. The couple knew her as her daughter's identity and she lived with them for nearly two years.
While living with them, she obtained a driver's license with Lauren's name on it, enrolled in Southwest Baptist University and received $9,400 in federal loans, $5,920 in Pell Grants and $1,863 in charges.
The fraudulent scheme came to an end in August of 2018 when Arkansas authorities contacted Mountain View Police Department about Oglesby committing fraud under a different identity.
When authorities questioned her, she intentionally denied it but later admitted to the fraudulent scheme.
After pleading guilty, Oglesby is now facing five years behind bars without parole for one count of intentionally providing false information to the Social Security Administration. She must pay $17,521 to Southwest Baptist University and to her daughter.