BOSTON - A jury convicted a Franklin woman on charges that she stole more than $77,000 in government retirement benefits.
Sharon Kay Bowles,55, has been convicted on five counts of theft of government money. The verdict followed a trial before United States District Judge William G. Young who scheduled sentencing for July 24, 2012.
Bowles was charged with stealing money from the Office of Personnel Management by taking monthly annuity payments intended for her mother for nearly four years after her mother’s death in 2004. Bowles failed to notify the Office of Personnel Management of her mother’s death and falsified verification forms to mislead the government into believing that Bowles’s mother, the only legal recipient of the annuity payments, was still alive.
Bowles faces up to 10 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine on each count.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz; Drew Grimm, Special Agent in Charge of Eastern Operations, Office of Personnel Management, Office of Inspector General; and Steven D. Ricciardi, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service made the announcement. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul G. Levenson of Ortiz’s Economic Crimes Unit.
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