Dead dad's Social Security benefits bilked

Abel Jose Perez was sentenced yesterday (November 6) to a year and a day in prison for cashing in his father's Social Security benefits after he died. Perez raked in $271,925.60 after his father's death in 1997.

Rather than telling the Social Security Administration of his father's death, Abel would forge his father's name to the government checks, according to his confession last May. The checks continued to pile up in his parents' bank account, and he had exclusive access to it as he illegally converted the money to his own uses.

Acting U.S. Attorney Alana Robinson said this was the largest such theft in the Southern District of California, but the office has prosecuted a significant number of these cases in the past three years.