Lindsey T. Burt, 33, of Berwyn Road, could be sent to prison for as long as 41/2 years or placed on probation when she is sentenced on May 21 by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty.
Assistant Prosecutor Kimberly Bond said Burt was supposed to file paperwork with the probate court to recognize the child’s father as guardian after the child’s mother died. The parents weren’t married, and the father, Mark Chapa, lives in Texas.
Instead, Burt altered a document to make it appear as if she was the child’s guardian, and she sent it to the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, where the child’s mother had worked. From April 2008 to April 2013, the retirement system deposited death benefits totaling $67,183 in Burt’s personal savings account.
Bond told the judge that Burt used the money “to make her life easier.”
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Former attorney pleads guilty in theft of death benefits intended for a child