Man pretends he doesn’t live with his wife, steals benefits for 16 years, feds say
A man stole thousands of dollars in Social Security benefits by lying about his living situation for 16 years, federal prosecutors said.
During that time, the Massachusetts resident pretended he didn’t live with his wife, lied to the Social Security Administration about where he resided and overstated his monthly rent by $575, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
This allowed him to collect more than $114,000 in disability benefits he wasn’t entitled to, prosecutors said.
If he was honest about his living arrangements, the Social Security Administration “would have ‘significantly reduced’” the monthly disability payments issued to him, prosecutors wrote in sentencing documents.
Now the man, 51, of Belchertown, has been sentenced to 10 months in prison on Jan. 4, the attorney’s office announced in a Jan. 5 news release.
Following a four-day trial in August, a jury found him guilty of one count of theft of public funds, prosecutors said.
McClatchy News contacted his court-appointed defense attorney, Peter A. Slepchuk, for comment Jan. 8 and didn’t receive an immediate response.
Slepchuk argued in support of a sentence of six months of home confinement with three years probation, instead of prison, for his client in a sentencing memorandum, which refers to the man’s wife as his ex-wife.
He “was not using his SSI benefits to lead a lavish lifestyle with yachts, private jets, and stays at luxury resorts…..(he) lived in a rundown trailer in abject poverty,” Slepchuk wrote of his client in the memo.
According to Slepchuk, the man and his ex-wife both received disability benefits issued by the SSA.
“They were only receiving between $17,628.00 (2006) and $22,536.00 (2019) annually as a couple,” Slepchuck wrote. “By comparison the annual Federal Benefit Rate for a couple was $10,848.00 in 2006 and $13,884.00 in 2019. One can only wonder how two disabled people are expected to survive on such little income.”
When the man lived with the woman, her income would’ve been considered by the SSA in determining how much in monthly disability payments he was eligible for, prosecutors said.
They sought a lengthier sentence of one year and six months in prison for the man, as “he has failed to take any responsibility for his actions, and he should be punished accordingly,” documents said.
Around the same time of the Social Security theft, prosecutors said the man embezzled $46,000 from his trailer park association while he was the association’s treasurer.
This led to a state superior court judge sentencing him to seven years of supervised probation and ordering him to pay restitution in 2017, according to a report issued that year by the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office.
In regards to the Social Security case, Slepchuk wrote in the sentencing memo that his client “recognizes that any theft is wrong and worthy of sanction.”
However, he said that the case “is not one of an already wealthy man stealing to line his pockets even further, but rather, is more akin to a pauper stealing a loaf of bread to avoid starvation.”
The man has no assets beyond receiving $940 a month, the amount of disability payments the SSA now issues him, according to Slepchuk.
The man is due back in court for a March 5 hearing, when the judge will determine a restitution and forfeiture amount, according to the attorney’s office.
Belchertown is about 85 miles west of Boston.
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