A Baltimore man and a Towson woman pleaded guilty today to two counts each resulting from a scheme they perpetrated using their federal jobs to make phony Social Security payments to a NASA-derived account.

   Franklin Thomas, 35, of Baltimore, and Andrea D. Harrison, a/k/a Andrea D. Ables, 38, of Towson, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Richard D. Bennett to one count of mail fraud and one count of wire fraud, according to U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein

   According to the agreed statement of facts presented to the court:

   Andrea D. Harrison worked in the Office of Human Resources at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Greenbelt, in the Office of Leadership and Organizational as a Contracting Officer to procure goods and services relating to leadership and organizational training and development.

   Franklin G. Thomas worked for the Social Security Administration (SSA) as a benefit authorizer in Woodlawn. In that capacity, one of Mr. Thomas’s duties was to process payments of SSA funds to legal representatives of Social Security claimants.

   From 1996-2005, Ms. Harrison prepared or caused to be prepared a series of NASA purchase orders payable to some variation of “The Franklin Thomas Group.” Ms. Harrison subsequently certified that services or goods had been received from “The Franklin Thomas Group,” and assisted

   Mr. Thomas in providing the documentation required by NASA to process payment.

A total of $194,749.98 was sent from the United States Treasury to Thomas’s personal bank account as a result of the fraudulent representations and documentation provided the duo. The two then shared in the proceeds.

   During 2004-2005, Thomas processed a series of eleven SSA payments to Harrison.

   Thomas admitted to using a manual override computer function to instruct the SSA system to make payments to “Andrea Harrison, attorney for [claimant].” Ms. Harrison is not licensed to practice law and did not represent any claimants before the SSA.

   As a result of the computer entries by Thomas, checks were mailed via the United States Postal Service to Andrea Harrison at her home address. The total amount of the checks was $52,534.50. Ms. Harrison cashed and/or deposited those checks at