A Massachusetts gentleman took “repeated, deliberate actions ” to take from his cousin — a U. S. Marine Corps veteran who was in the medical — “again and suddenly, ” federal prosecutors wrote in court papers filed last year.
Joseph Smith, 71, and others stole more than$ 450,000 in disability benefits from the man between roughly 2015 and 2020, when he was hospitalized with ALS, according to the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
There’s no cure for Und, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that affects the nervous system and the ability to manage one’s muscles.
After the 20-year Marine Corps senior was diagnosed with the disease, the Veterans Benefits Administration began mailing him regular illness balances in September 2015, lawyers said.
Smith and another stole the investigations and deposited them into bank accounts, including a lender account Smith opened in the veteran’s title, according to prosecutors. He cashed the checks for “personal expenses, ” prosecutors said.
Then Smith, of New Bedford, has been sentenced to one year and 11 months in prison and ordered to pay$ 459,550,86 in restitution, the U. S. Attorney’s Office said in a Jan. 17 media release.
“Stealing from a Marine Corps former who proudly served for 20 times as he battled a devastating disease is about as low as it gets, ” U. S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said in the media release.
A federal public defender who represented Smith did n’t immediately respond to McClatchy News ’ request for comment Jan. 21.
Back of punishment, Levy and Benjamin A. Saltzman wrote in a sentencing memo that Smith had ’ve continued stealing from the former if officials had n’t discovered the noted fraud.
“Over more than four years, ( Smith ) took several steps to steal as much money as possible without getting caught, ” the sentencing memorandum said.
Smith pleaded guilty to one count of robbery of government advantages and one count of conspiracy to seize federal benefits in September, according to the U. S. Attorney’s Office.
In the sentencing memo, Levy and Saltzman credited Smith for accepting “responsibility for his crimes. ”
Backpack belonging to the senior goes missing
The U. S. Attorney’s Office said Smith was charged in the case in June.
According to an affidavit filed that quarter, Smith was receiving Social Security pension benefits and lived across the street from the senior when prosecutors said he stole from him.
Before the former was hospitalized with Und, he lived with his brother and one of Smith’s family members, the affidavit said.
The veteran’s brother, who died in 2022, and Smith’s family were considered co-conspirators in the case, according to the petition, which did n’t contain their names.
In May 2016, while the former was in the doctor, he asked his daughter to get his things from his New Bedford household, including a dark suitcase that had “his Social Security card, debit cards, defense documents, and Massachusetts identification cards, ” the affidavit said.
His daughter constantly tried to locate the suitcase, but she never found it, according to the petition.
She “confronted both ( her father’s brother ) and ( Smith’s relative ) about the briefcase, but neither was cooperative, ” the affidavit said.
The veteran’s nephew and Smith’s household part were later found with the veteran’s Social Security cards and ID cards in May 2020, when a police commander caught them trying to re-open a bank account in the veteran’s title, according to the affidavit.
An ‘appalling violence’
Before Smith’s punishment, his federal defender , Joshua Hanye, wrote in court documents that Smith was “prepared to recognize the consequences of his actions. ”
He said that when Smith stole from his cousin, he was experiencing drug habit.
“Mr. Smith was still in the clutches of a crack cocaine addiction that had plagued him for more than 30 years and which at that stage had led to daily usage, ” Hanye wrote. “That habit was involuntarily, but thankfully, interrupted in soon 2020 when he was arrested for a position cocaine act. ”
Hanye argued in support of a statement of one month and six weeks for Smith, before a judge eventually sentenced him one time and 11 months in prison, the sentencing memo showed.
“Military soldiers deserve our highest reverence and respect, ” Ketty Larco-Ward, the examiner in charge of the U. S. Postal Inspection Service’s Boston department, said in the media transfer.
“Joseph Smith outrageously stole a crippled veteran’s gains to enrich himself, ” Larco-Ward said, and added that he was sentenced “for his horrible crime. ”
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