A Georgia woman collected nearly $500,000 in her dead mother-in-law’s pension and Social Security payments over the span of 15 years, the New York state comptroller said.
Sandra Smith, 50, who served as caretaker for her mother-in-law Minnie Smith, continued to collect her payments after her death at age 63 in 2006, Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said.
She pled guilty in July to federal charges, was sentenced to over a year in federal prison, and must make full restitution, DiNapoli announced this week.
Smith “callously exploited her mother-in-law’s death in an effort to defraud New York’s retirement system and the Social Security Administration,” DiNapoli said.
Smith’s mother-in-law was a longtime Brooklyn resident who worked for the state Insurance Fund from 1985 until her retirement in 2005.
She then moved to Georgia to be close to her family.
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Minnie Smith’s family did not notify the New York State Retirement System or the Social Security Administration of her death.
Instead, the retirement system received a change of address form with the dead woman’s purported signature, DiNapoli said.
Sandra Smith had access to Minnie Smith’s bank account after her death.
She transferred the pension and social security funds into her own bank accounts, DiNapoli said.
A total of $264,699 in pension payments and $194,351 in Social Security payments were deposited into Minnie Smith’s bank account from 2006 to 2021.
“After we conducted forensic analysis, Ms. Smith was interviewed by federal investigators and confessed to the crime,” a comptroller spokesman said.
