Woman hid mom’s death to steal $268,000 in Social Security retirement benefits, feds say
A woman never notified the Social Security Administration of her mother’s death in 2010 and went on to steal more than $268,000 in her retirement benefits, federal prosecutors said.
The 51-year-old, a U.S. citizen living in Tijuana, Mexico, is accused of keeping her mother’s death hidden and her bank account active to collect the benefits for 13 years, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California.
After the woman’s mother moved from California to the woman’s home in Tijuana due to her declining health, she died in June 2010, prosecutors said. At the time, the Social Security Administration was regularly depositing retirement benefits into the mother’s bank account, according to prosecutors.
These monthly benefits replace a portion of a person’s income after they retire or work fewer hours than before.
The woman is accused of withdrawing her mother’s benefits with her bank card and impersonating her mother twice in calls she made to her mother’s bank, prosecutors said.
During the second call — which was made after the SSA stopped paying the mother’s benefits because the agency learned of her death — the woman asked the SSA why the benefit payment ended, according to prosecutors.
Three weeks after the SSA ended the payments, the woman was arrested June 27 while trying to enter the U.S. from Mexico, prosecutors said.
On Nov. 13, a federal judge sentenced the woman to one year and one day in prison for Social Security fraud, the attorney’s office announced in a news release.
Pedro Bernal Bilse, the woman’s defense attorney, told McClatchy News in a statement on Nov. 14 that the woman’s family depended on her mother’s benefits.
“When (her) mother passed, it was difficult to find an alternative source of income,” Bilse said.
In a sentencing memorandum submitted on his client’s behalf, Bilse wrote that his client used her mother’s benefits while she was alive to care for her, including to pay for her medical and personal expenses, and to care “for her own needs and that of her children.”
According to Bilse, the woman “took her mother in for several years and cared for her when no other family member was willing to do so,” he told McClatchy News.
As part of the woman’s sentencing, she must pay the SSA $268,143 in restitution, prosecutors said.
“My client is content with the resolution in this case and accepts the court’s sentence,” Bilse said.
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