PORTLAND – A Lewiston woman was sentenced to 10 months in jail Friday on charges that she lied to government officials while trying to get Social Security and food stamps.

Tammy Jean Torrey, who also has a home in Oklahoma, was ordered to pay $47,229.15 in restitution for committing seven years of government benefits fraud.

Torrey pleaded guilty to use of a false Social Security number, making a false statement in an application for Social Security benefits, and making a false statement on a food stamp eligibility form.

Torrey had been convicted of fraud and of government benefits fraud in Massachusetts, and had been charged with theft by deception in New Hampshire before moving to Maine in the mid-1990s, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Halsey B. Frank.

He declined to release Torrey’s age.

Prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Portland presented evidence that Torrey applied for and obtained Social Security benefits and qualified for and received food stamps on the basis of being disabled and impoverished.

She then went to work for several different employers using a false Social Security number in an effort to conceal her earnings from the government, Frank wrote in a press release.

Frank said that in November of 2000, while she was collecting Social Security benefits and receiving food stamps, Torrey applied for work as a cashier at a Mobil Mart in Lewiston.

In connection with that application, Torrey used a false Social Security number to complete tax forms, Frank said. Shortly after, she completed Social Security forms falsely claiming that she was not working. She was also convicted of failing to disclose her earnings on food stamp review forms.

After working for a short time, Torrey would report a work-related injury, quit her job, and collect workers’ compensation benefits, according to Frank. She would not report these benefits, and continued to collect the full amount of her Social Security benefits and continued to receive food stamps, Frank said.

Torrey was accused of repeating this pattern with several different employers in Maine until the Social Security Administration detected her fraud and discontinued her benefits in 2002. She then moved to Oklahoma, where she was arrested on a federal warrant and returned to Maine to face prosecution.

U.S. Attorney Paula D. Silsby praised the cooperative efforts of special agents of the Social Security Administration and the Department of Agriculture.