Man steals $600,000 in benefits meant for dead dad — with help from impersonator, feds say

A New Jersey man stole thousands in retirement benefits meant for his father who died in 2004 — over a span of nearly 20 years, federal prosecutors said.

The man’s scheme involved altering his father’s October 2004 death certificate and having someone impersonate him to keep the payments coming, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.

He stole $624,230.86 from October 2004, when his father died, to December 2023, prosecutors said.

Now, the 66-year-old Somerset County resident has pleaded guilty to an information charging him with conversion of federal funds, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a Nov. 26 news release.

The man’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Nov. 27.

Following his father’s death, the man tried to dupe federal agencies issuing the benefits by changing his death certificate, according to prosecutors.

Then he had an impersonator pretend to be his father, twice, so a federal agency “would think his father was still alive and continue payments,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors didn’t identify the person accused of posing as the man’s father and didn’t specify which federal agency.

By pleading guilty, the man agreed that he will forfeit any property that is linked to the federal funds he stole, according to the information.

The man is set to be sentenced on April 21 and faces up to 10 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Out of more than 64,000 federal criminal cases reported to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2023, nearly 5,000 involved “theft, property destruction and fraud,” according to the agency.

Government benefits fraud made up 16.3% of these cases, and nearly 800 people were sentenced in benefit fraud cases that year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission reports.

This marks a 92.2% increase in government benefits fraud cases since 2019, according to the agency.

This story was originally published November 27, 2024 at 1:44 PM with the headline "Man steals $600,000 in benefits meant for dead dad — with help from impersonator, feds say."

Julia Marnin

McClatchy DC

Julia Marnin covers courts for McClatchy News, writing about criminal and civil affairs, including cases involving policing, corrections, civil liberties, fraud, and abuses of power. As a reporter on McClatchy’s National Real-Time Team, she’s also covered the COVID-19 pandemic and a variety of other topics since joining in 2021, following a fellowship with Newsweek. Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, she was raised in South Jersey and is now based in New York State.