RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Officials say a North Carolina grand jury has indicted a man who they say kept his mother’s pension payments 15 years after her death.
The N.C. Department of the State Treasurer said in a news release Wednesday Ben Hamilton Colvard III was indicted by a Wake County grand jury on Tuesday for knowingly obtaining property by false pretenses.
According to the department, Colvard’s mother was a retired state worker who died in 2001. The department said Colvard dropped her name from their joint checking account. Her benefits were supposed to end that March, but the indictment said the state continued making payments totaling $266,747 through April 2016.
If convicted, Colvard could be sentenced to between 44 and 182 months in prison. It’s not known if he has an attorney.
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