After Mom Died, California Man Collected Her Benefits for 32 Years

A California man pleaded guilty to fraudulently collecting his dead mother’s benefits for 32 years after her death, in what a prosecutor says “is believed to be the longest running and largest fraud of its kind in this district.” Donald Felix Zampach of Poway in southern California pleaded guilty to money laundering and social security fraud in a San Diego federal court, the Los Angeles Times reports. The 65-year-old agreed to pay more than $830,000 in fines and restitution, which matches the amount of government benefits he stole after his mother died in 1990. She had moved back to Japan, where she was born, that year after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and though her son notified the US Embassy there of her death, he did not put her social security number on the form in the hopes that her benefits would still come in.

And come in they did; among them her Social Security and Defense Department survivor benefits. He also collected money by filing tax returns in her name and opening credit card accounts in her name. “This defendant didn’t just passively collect checks mailed to his deceased mother,” the prosecutor says in a US Attorney’s Office statement. “This was an elaborate fraud spanning more than three decades that required aggressive action and deceit to maintain the ruse. He filed false income tax returns, posed as his mother, and signed her name to many documents.” As part of his restitution, he will give up his home, which he had paid off with the stolen benefits. He faces up to 25 years behind bars when he is sentenced Sept. 20, USA Today reports. (Read more California stories.)