A 63-year-old Long Island man pleaded guilty to collecting his mom’s pension checks for more than a year after she died in April 2021.
Suffolk County prosecutors said former Town of Huntington employee Moses K. Johnson transferred 15 payments totaling $56,411 from his mother’s bank account into his own between the time of Johnson’s mom’s death and June 30, 2022.
The defendant, who pleaded guilty to grand larceny Tuesday, spent more than 30 years working for Huntington’s recycling center before retiring in 2017, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.
He’s been ordered to pay restitution and return to court Dec. 10. There’s no mandatory prison sentence for a Class E felony, which Johnson copped to, though he could receive a maximum punishment of four years behind bars.
Prosecutors claim Johnson knew as a retiree he had an obligation to report his mother’s death to either her bank or the New York State and Local Retirement Center.
District Attorney Raymond Tierney called his actions “morally reprehensible.”
