For 45 years, the state of Florida mailed monthly pension checks to retired schoolteacher Olive Prieto, a geriatric wonder who turned 107 in January but kept so busy she was never home when state auditors called.
Finally, the auditors learned the sad truth. Prieto had died of a stroke - in 1950, two years after retiring.Since her death, someone had cashed $125,000 worth of her retirement checks.
Her nephew, Llars Chester Copeland, 72, was arrested Thursday in Pompano Beach after he was filmed cashing one of the checks.
Because of the statute of limitations, the self-proclaimed bishop at the Free Will Holiness Church was charged only with 38 counts of grand theft and forgery for the checks dating from 1989.
Investigators suspect that Copeland's mother - Prieto's sister, Mamie Copeland - had cashed the checks until her own death in 1984. After that, Copeland carried on the tradition, said special agent Donald McCrindle.
"For 40 years, we had no reason to be suspicious," said Pat Connolly, chief of Florida's Bureau of Benefit Payments.
Each year, the state sent forms to the address listed for Prieto to verify that she was alive. The audit forms were always signed and mailed back. The state also received several change-of-address forms in her name over the years.
State workers grew suspicious during a 1992 audit of workers over 100 who still received pensions. Notarized forms showed that a relative had power of attorney over Prieto's account because she was too ill to handle it herself.