TACOMA — A Port Angeles man who collected nearly $200,000 by claiming his grandmother was still alive years after her death has been sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to one year in prison and three years of supervised release.
Morgan Michael Hopkins, 43, pleaded guilty to theft of public funds in connection with his scheme to collect and use survivor benefits owed to his grandmother, said acting U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes.
At Friday’s sentencing, U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton said he had seen a number of similar theft cases.
“There’s got to be some residue that reverberates to the community at large — both to the population that is tempted and the population that is angry about the unprovoked theft of taxpayer money,” he said.
According to court records, after Hopkins’ grandmother died in March 2009, he forged official government documentation claiming to be his grandmother and requesting that her federal workers’ compensation death survivor benefits continue.
The federal Department of Labor had been paying workers’ compensation survivor benefits to the defendant’s grandmother following the death of her husband, a former federal employee, since about 1968, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
When the defendant’s grandmother died, the Department of Labor terminated the benefits.
But the agency resumed payment after it received the falsified verification-of-benefits form.
Ultimately, it paid $196,565 into the grandmother’s bank account after her death.
Hopkins used his grandmother’s debit card and forged his grandmother’s signature on checks so he could access the money and use it for his own purposes, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
In January 2014, the Department of Labor confirmed that Hopkins’ grandmother had died five years earlier and terminated the payments.
The case was investigated by the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Wilson.
