She made sure the checks continued after her mother, who was receiving widow’s and dependency benefits, died in 1973.
/Gray News) - A Cincinnati woman impersonated her own mother for nearly half a century in a successful effort to steal nearly half a million dollars from the federal government, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
He also equated stealing from the VA to stealing from veterans, saying she “callously exploited her own mother’s death” to steal from a government program “designed to help those who have served their country.”Ferrin’s mother was receiving widow’s and dependency benefits from the VA when she died in 1973, according to the DOJ. The benefits should have ceased upon her death, but no one—including Ferrin, who was 26 years old at the time—notified the VA.
Ferrin received more than 500 checks in total and several times submitted fraudulent paperwork to the VA to keep the scheme alive. “Although this may explain her decision to take the VA benefits for a short time in the early 1970′s, it does not remotely begin to justify her subsequent theft from the VA for the ensuing four decades,” Landry said.
In 2017, Ferrin forged her mother’s signature on a form directing the VA to deposit the benefits into a bank account she controlled.Ultimately, Ferrin received the five years of probation her defense requested. The sentencing memorandum on her behalf notes she has no criminal history and “provides around-the-clock care for her 80-year-old husband,” who has a degenerative neuromuscular condition.
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