A Harford County woman has pleaded guilty to felony insurance fraud for continuing to cash $16,800 worth of her father?s worker?s compensation checks for more than two years after he died.
Peggy Fowler-Sanders, 45, of Churchville, claimed her late father was still living with her, then collected, forged and cashed his worker?s compensation checks from December 2002 through February2005, according to the prosecutor.
Her father had been receiving disability checks since 1986 and died in April 2002, said Assistant Attorney General Emmet Davitt, but Sanders told investigators she had been advised she was entitled to collect her father?s checks for a three-year period after his death.
Sanders was contacted several times to update her father?s records, and she repeatedly said her father was still living with her ? upping the case from simple administrative error and forged checks to felony insurance fraud, Davitt said.
The case came to the Attorney General?s Insurance Fraud Division after another company advised the father?s insurers that he was deceased.
Judge William O. Carr of the Harford County Circuit Court sentenced Sanders to five years in prison, but suspended that sentence and gave her two years? supervised probation instead, along with restitution of the stolen money.
The suspended sentence and probation is typical for someone with a clean record, such as Sanders, Davitt said.
A schedule for paying back the stolen money will be worked out with her probation officer ? with the five-year sentence still a possibility if she violates probation or does not pay, he said.
“She did arrive in court with a $4,000 check to start the restitution, so that probably helped her in the eyes of the court,” said Davitt.
