For almost six years, a Social Security disability account kept receiving money after the woman it was meant for had died, and a man who lived with her took it out of ATMs month after month. A federal court in Boston has now ordered him to pay all of it back. Christopher D. Leon, 56, a former Haverhill resident, was sentenced on September 30, 2026, to one day in prison, deemed served, and three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs also ordered Leon to pay $87,817 in restitution, the amount prosecutors say he received in Social Security disability benefits between November 2019 and August 2025. The case turns on a situation many families face quietly: what to do when a beneficiary dies and the deposits do not stop. Families settling the affairs of a person on disability or retirement benefits face the same question about payments that arrive afterward, and this case shows where treating them as spendable can end.
A death does not always stop the deposits, and in this case they ran for nearly six years. The Social Security Check Protection Kit includes a first-week checklist for when a spouse dies, including not spending the payment for the month of death.
Get the Check Protection Kit’s first-week checklist for a spouse’s death →
How the withdrawals started after her death
Prosecutors say Leon lived with an applicant for Social Security disability benefits at the time of her death. After she died, the Social Security Administration mailed a notice of award to Leon’s address, and benefits were deposited into the dead woman’s bank account. Leon then used the deceased beneficiary’s debit card to take the money out through monthly ATM cash withdrawals.
The release does not name the woman and gives no other details about her. It does say Leon was charged in May 2026 and pleaded guilty in June 2026 to one count of receiving stolen government money or property. That is the charge that carried the sentence and the $87,817 restitution order.
What the sentence includes
The sentence is light on prison time and heavy on repayment. One day behind bars was treated as served, three years of supervised release follow, and the restitution amount matches the roughly $87,817 in benefits the office says he received over the period. U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley’s office prosecuted the case through Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Nagelberg of the Major Crimes Unit, and the investigation was handled by the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General, whose Boston-New York Field Division is led by Special Agent in Charge Amy Connelly.
The release describes benefits received “from November 2019 through August 2025.” Social Security’s disability program pays monthly benefits to people whose disability stops or limits work, as the agency’s disability page describes it, so a stretch of that length adds up to dozens of separate deposits.
A pattern federal prosecutors are tracking
The Boston case is not isolated. The Justice Department said on September 29, 2026 that its fraud division had brought charges against 17 defendants in 11 districts during a one-month push that ran from August 21 to September 18, with more than $1.3 million in intended losses, and the cases involve benefits stolen after a beneficiary’s death. In one of them, in the Northern District of New York, David Darling is accused of using his deceased brother’s ATM card beginning the day after his brother’s death, in a case involving $109,746. Prosecutors say Social Security did not know of the death and kept paying into the account. In Western Pennsylvania, Debra Reed is charged in a $59,070 case: her father died on November 23, 2020, and retirement payments kept going into his account from the next day until October 26, 2023, with Reed either taking the money herself or having her daughter take it. Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald, who leads the department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, said, “Every dollar stolen is a dollar taken from a retiree’s medicine, meals, or housing.” Those cases are charges, not convictions. The charges in that group fall under 18 U.S.C. 641, which carries a maximum of 10 years. The details are in the Justice Department’s announcement.
Social Security’s inspector general lists misuse of benefits among the kinds of fraud it takes reports on. The reporting page names “misusing a Social Security number or Social Security benefits” and points to an online fraud report form.
What a family does when payments keep coming after a death
The free starting point is Social Security’s own survivors page. It says that “a funeral home will usually tell us when someone dies, so you may not need to report a death to us.” The same page says survivor benefits can go to a spouse, divorced spouse, child or dependent parent of a worker who paid Social Security taxes before dying, based on that worker’s earnings history. A funeral home notice is not a substitute for checking, though, and in the Boston case a notice of award still went out and money still moved after the applicant’s death.
Families can gather the death certificate, the beneficiary’s Social Security number and the bank account that receives the deposits before calling Social Security. Anyone who sees deposits continue should leave them untouched and tell the agency. Anyone who learns of someone else using a dead beneficiary’s card or account can file a report through the inspector general’s page linked above.
The Justice Department release is the clearest guide to the consequence: restitution of $87,817 and a federal conviction for receiving stolen government money.
Almost six years of deposits kept arriving after one death
The detail families overlook is the payment for the month of death, and it is the one most likely to be spent by habit. Inside the 75-page Social Security Check Protection Kit, the first-week checklist for a surviving spouse walks through that payment before anything else moves in the account.
Get the month-of-death payment checklist for a surviving spouse →
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by The Financial Wire’s editorial team.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
