An Olalla man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for collecting the Social Security benefits of a brother who disappeared after visiting him.
Chris Harvey Sayler, 74, collected at least $388,000 over the last 20 years, using the identity of his brother, Jarvis, who was last seen after living briefly with Chris Sayler in the Vancouver, Washington area in 1988, according to federal prosecutors.
Sayler was sentenced on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to 25 months in prison, according to a press release from acting U.S. Attorney Tessa Gorman. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft earlier this year, according to court records.
"This is a sad case for all concerned — including the public...." said U.S. District Judge Robert J. Bryan. "It's a crime against all the citizen taxpayers in the country." Judge Bryan noted that but for Sayler's age, health and military service, he would have faced a much longer sentence.
According to records cited in the press release, Chris Sayler's brother, Jarvis L. Sayler, then 37, moved from Missouri to the Vancouver area in 1988.
"Jarvis Sayler was born with partial eyesight, and had been receiving Social Security disability benefits since 1977," the news release said. "Jarvis Sayler wrote a few letters to Missouri between June and September 1988, but that was the last anyone heard from him."
A third brother reported him missing the next year. Clark County Sheriff's deputies "interviewed Chris Sayler at that time about his brother's whereabouts," the news release said. "Sayler claimed his brother moved from his home after the two had an argument. That was the last reported sighting of Jarvis Sayler."
Subsequently, Chris Sayler obtained a Washington State identity card for Jarvis Sayler using his own photo, prosecutors said. When facial recognition software flagged the switch, Chris Sayler claimed the brothers were twins — although their birth dates were four years apart. Later investigation showed the two men were not biologically related, prosecutors said.
"Speaking with family members in September 2019, Sayler claimed he had not seen his brother in more than 15 years," the news release said. "When interviewed by law enforcement at the time of his arrest in October 2019, Sayler claimed he had last seen his brother in 2016 and before that in 2012."
Prosecutors said Jarvis Sayler's Social Security benefits began going to an account in Vancouver in 1998, possibly earlier. When Chris Sayler moved to Olalla in Kitsap County, they said, the account followed him there. Records show debit card purchases from the account at stores such as Costco and Fred Meyer.
The fraud was "not an isolated incident of dishonesty or a brief lapse in judgment during a difficult period," wrote assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Diggs in a sentencing memo, "but rather a separate decision to steal, month after month, for nearly 30 years."
Chris Sayler was arrested Oct. 1, 2019, after an investigation by the Social Security Administration's inspector general.
"I'm sorry that I caused all this problem," Sayler said at the hearing Sept. 16. "I shouldn't have done it."
