Pilates instructor ordered to repay 15 years of disability benefits

SALT LAKE CITY — A pilates instructor living in Taylorsville was sentenced to a year of home detention Monday after Social Security agents found her exercise videos on social media while claiming disability benefits.

Hillary Brown, 41, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in July, was ordered to pay almost $150,000 in restitution, and faces a year of home detention and five years of probation.

After a stroke in October 2008 that required brain surgery, Brown applied for Social Security benefits. She claimed she was experiencing brain damage and right-side paralysis that prevented her from working, according to information released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Just days before a psychiatric assessment to support her application, where a doctor documented Brown’s self-reported brain damage, the woman had “completed upper-level college coursework with As and Bs,” the release says. Brown’s mother, in a character letter submitted to the court, contended Brown “finished college with a lot of support from her professors and myself.”

Brown got her driver’s license, certifying “she did not have a condition that impaired her ability to drive,” the release said, but claimed in her Social Security benefits that “she could not drive due to crippling physical symptoms.”

After becoming a certified pilates instructor in June 2015, and completing yoga teacher training in 2018 — classes requiring over 1,000 hours of instruction and testing — Brown continued to claim “she was too disabled to engage in substantial work, while also continuing to teach physically active classes and post about them on social media,” the release says.

The Social Security Administration learned Brown was active and working in 2021 and sent a letter saying she was not eligible to receive disability and had been overpaid. The woman requested they waive the overpayment, and continued to claim “right-side paralysis and other ailments still prevented her from working, and that they made basic functions like walking, standing or using her arms difficult,” the attorney’s office says.

Investigators “observed and recorded hours of footage documenting Brown’s capable lifestyle and active Pilates teaching” during the same period, according to the release.

Brown was never eligible for benefits, prosecutors successfully argued, finding evidence that Brown was “highly functional within months of her stroke.”

Numerous letters of character support were submitted to Judge David Same, from family, fellow pilates instructors, and past clients. Patients say Brown has had a positive impact on their lives and she has used her experience recovering from the stroke to help “senior citizens manage arthritis and recover from injury or surgery.”

Her brother said Brown “has always gone out of her way to help others, particularly in mentoring young girls,” and she “deeply regrets her action and understands the gravity of the situation.”