PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - The son of a former Rhode Island police officer has been charged with continuing to collect his father’s pension longer after his father and mother died.
Raymond Haskell Jr., 45, fraudulently received more than $63,000 in pension benefits from the city of Central Falls since June 2014, according to Central Falls police.
Haskell turned himself in on Thursday and was charged with obtaining money under false pretenses, identity fraud, forgery, and giving false documents to a public official, police said.
He did not enter a plea in court on Thursday and bond was set at $10,000. He was referred to the public defender’s office.
Haskell’s father, retired Central Falls Officer Raymond Haskell Sr., died in 1997 and his wife, Laura Haskell, died in May 2014, yet the pension continued to be paid, police said.
The issue was discovered during an audit of the city’s police and fire pensions last year.
The city’s finance department received a returned pension transition form in October of 2019 purportedly signed by Laura Haskell and indicating she was still alive to receive her husband’s pension, police said.
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