A California man recently pleaded guilty in federal court to hiding his mother’s death for more than 30 years while he collected her Social Security and military retirement payments totaling more than $800,000.
Donald Felix Zampach, 65, of Poway, just north of San Diego, pleaded guilty on June 27 to money laundering and Social Security fraud, admitting that he fraudulently concealed his mother’s death for decades and that he received and then laundered at least $830,238 in stolen government benefits intended for his mother that should have ceased upon her death.
“This was an elaborate fraud spanning more than three decades that required aggressive action and deceit to maintain the ruse.”
U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman
“This crime is believed to be the longest-running and largest fraud of its kind in this district,” said U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman of the Southern District of California in a statement. “This defendant didn’t just passively collect checks mailed to his deceased mother. This was an elaborate fraud spanning more than three decades that required aggressive action and deceit to maintain the ruse. 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. As a result of this fraud, he received more than $800,000 in stolen public money. For his deceit, he will face justice.”
According to his plea agreement, Zampach’s mother died in Japan in 1990, and at the time of her death she was receiving a widow’s pension from the Social Security Administration and an annuity from the Department of Defense Finance Accounting Service. Just before his mother’s death, 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.
After his mother’s death, Zampach maintained her bank accounts, forged her signature on certificates of eligibility to keep her government benefits in pay, and filed forged federal income tax returns, posing as his mother, for over two decades.
“For more than three decades, Mr. Zampach failed to report the death of his mother to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and used more than $250,000 in benefits for himself,” said Gail S. Ennis, Inspector General for SSA. “We will continue to pursue and hold those accountable who defraud SSA.”
Zampach is out on bail and is set to be sentenced September 20. As a part of his plea agreement, he’s required to forfeit his home in Poway and put the money toward his $830,000 restitution bill.
Zampach admitted that between November 1990 and September 2022, he received at least $830,238 in stolen public money intended for his mother. Zampach also admitted to using his mother’s identity to fraudulently open credit accounts with at least nine different financial institutions, causing them to suffer a loss of more than $28,000. Zampach admitted to laundering the stolen money to pay off the mortgage on his Poway home, in order to conceal both his ownership of the Poway home and the fact that the money he used constituted criminal proceeds of his fraud.
The Social Security Administration and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) takes a hard stance against those who attempt to defraud the system, issuing hefty fines and penalties that totaled over $57 million in 2020, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
The OIG received over 325,000 allegations of fraud that year and opened 8,619 investigations while making 460 arrests and executing 104 search warrants. They also issued 1,309 criminal and civil monetary penalties to reach the more than $57 million for those found guilty of committing fraud against the SSA or its beneficiaries.
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