Aerial view of Poway in the suburbs of San Diego County, California.
Thomas De Wever/Getty Images/iStockphotoA California man has pleaded guilty to hiding the death of his mother for three decades in order to keep collecting her benefits, the Department of Justice said.
“This crime is believed to be the longest-running and largest fraud of its kind in this district,” said U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman in a statement.
The elaborate scheme began shortly before Donald Felix Zampach’s mother died in 1990. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California, Zampach “fraudulently conveyed her Poway home and filed for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy, disclosing neither his ownership of the Poway home nor the government benefits payments he was receiving.” In 1990, Zampach’s mother died in Japan — but Zampach continued collecting benefits and running her affairs as if she was still alive.
The woman received both a widow’s pension through Social Security and an annuity from the Department of Defense’s Finance Accounting Service. Prosecutors say Zampach forged her signature, opened at least nine credit cards in her name and filed fraudulent income tax returns for decades to keep up the ruse. “Zampach admitted that between November 1990 and September 2022, he received at least $830,238 in stolen public money intended for his mother,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
The deception “required aggressive action and deceit to maintain the ruse,” Grossman said. “He filed false income tax returns, posed as his mother and signed her name to many documents, and when investigators caught up to him, he continued to claim she was still alive.”
On Tuesday, Zampach, 65, pleaded guilty to Social Security fraud and money laundering; the fraud charges have a maximum prison time of five years while the money laundering charges could land Zampach up to 20 years in prison. He has already agreed to pay over $830,000 in restitution, including forfeiting his home in Poway.
Zampach is due back in court for sentencing on Sept. 20.
