January 17, 2008 

His mother died in 1985, but he continued to cash her federal pension checks. Now 81 years old, Joseph S. Apelman Jr. was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for theft of public money. 

Apelman, a Covington resident, pleaded guilty on Oct. 10 in New Orleans' U.S. District Court. The charge typically would carry a maximum of 10 years in prison. But as part of the plea agreement, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten agreed Apelman would receive the lower end of the guidelines. 

U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt also ordered Apelman to pay $52,251 in restitution. Margaret Apelman lived with her son until her death. She was the surviving spouse of a retired federal employee and therefore was entitled to receive survivor annuity benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. 

Her husband retired from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services in 1949 and died in 1966, Letten said. After Margaret Apelman died, her benefits should have ceased. But the U.S. Treasury Department continued to directly deposit the annual benefits into her account at Hibernia National Bank for another 20 years. Her son never informed the government of her death. 

According to the court records, from March 1, 2000, through Feb. 28, 2005, Apelman made $52,251 in withdrawals from his mother's account. 

Letten said other withdrawals occurred during earlier dates but that his office used the more recent timetable because there was more evidence for that period. Apelman's name was on the account, but "he knew the funds in the account only consisted of the federal annuity payments to which he was not entitled," Letten said. 

The Office of Personnel Management maintains that it does weekly cross-checks with the Social Security Administration's records to determine whether members on their payroll have died. 

Mike Orenstein, a spokesman from the Office of Personnel Management in Washington, said less than 1 percent of individuals delay reporting and that most of that likely is unintentional. 

Orenstein said that in addition to the Social Security Administration, the Office of Personnel Management cross-checks its records with the departments of Labor, Veterans Affairs and Defense.