BOULDER, CO — A Boulder woman has been sentenced to eight months in federal prison for theft of government pension funds, U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn announced Thursday. She was also ordered to pay $429,000 in restitution.
Kathleen McCalib, 52, pleaded guilty to the theft charges Jan. 14. After her father died in 2006, she continued to collect his Social Security retirement benefits and civil service retirement pension, according to a plea agreement. The federal government was not informed of his death, so the payments continued to be deposited each month into a joint account that McCalib held with her father, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
For the next 12 years, she continued to spend the funds and “frequently” forged her father’s signature on checks, which included large checks to herself that she wrote, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She also occasionally paid a home mortgage from the account, court documents show.
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Over the 12 years, McCalib collected and spent $429,454 in federal government money, Dunn said.
“Ms. McCalib stole from taxpayers by cashing electronic checks issued to her deceased father,” Dunn said in a statement. “Now she will have the opportunity to repay that theft with not only her money, but with her time in a federal prison.”
In addition to serving eight months in prison, McCalib will spend three years on supervised release.
— to patch.com
