Man to plead guilty to collecting dead mom’s disability payments
A Honolulu man is expected to plead guilty to defrauding the state out of more than $200,000 by collecting disability payments for his dead mother.
Steven Splater is scheduled to change his plea Wednesday in federal court. A federal indictment alleges he collected his mother’s disability benefits even though she died in 2000.
He had pleaded not guilty after he was arrested in the parking lot of his Salt Lake apartment building in January.
The indictment says he filed documents with the state Department of Labor in 2003 saying he had power of attorney for his mother, Edith Splater, who he claimed was still alive. The court documents say he continued to receive her benefits, which he deposited into an account with her name that he accessed.