Woman poses as dead mom for 19 years in $340K Florida scheme, feds say. She’s sentenced

A daughter impersonated her dead mom’s voice and pretended to be her for 19 years in Florida to obtain nearly $340,000 in Veterans Affairs benefits, federal prosecutors said.

A judge has now sentenced the 65-year-old Fort Myers woman to one year in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said Feb. 19. McClatchy News reached out to her attorney for comment Feb. 19 but did not immediately receive a response.

The woman’s father was a veteran, and therefore the mom began receiving surviving spouse benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs after he died, prosecutors said in an indictment.

The benefits didn’t extend to the daughter, and the money should have stopped coming in when her mother died in 2005, according to court documents.

But the daughter never reported her mom’s death to the VA, prosecutors said.

Instead, the daughter is accused of forging her mom’s name on documents and certifications to make it seem like her mom was still alive and keep the benefits rolling. Then she transferred some of the money from the VA to her own bank account, according to prosecutors.

Eventually, the VA learned the mother had died and stopped dispersing the benefits in 2024, but the daughter protested and said her mother was still alive, prosecutors said.

She called the VA, in one case pretending to talk in her mother’s voice on the phone, and told agents during a home visit that her mom lived with her, saw a doctor regularly and was “alive and in good health,” prosecutors said.

In the course of the scheme, she stole $338,000, which she will now have to pay back, according to federal prosecutors.

She was indicted on a wire fraud charge in August and pleaded guilty in December, documents show.

This story was originally published February 19, 2025 at 4:46 PM with the headline "Woman poses as dead mom for 19 years in $340K Florida scheme, feds say. She’s sentenced."