PORTLAND, Maine — A Topsham couple who used more than $100,000 in Social Security disability benefits paid to their disabled twin daughters for travel and items such as a motorcycle will serve five months in prison followed by five months of in-home detention.
Thomas Gerken, 63, and Jill Gerken, 62, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on Jan. 20 to federal charges of conspiracy to defraud the Social Security Administration of more than $100,000, according to court documents.
Judge Nancy Torresen sentenced each to five months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, with the first five months to be served in home detention, Assistant U.S. Attorney Halsey B. Frank, who prosecuted the case, said Monday.
The Gerkens must also pay $99,000 in restitution.
They each faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The Gerkens’ daughters, born in 1986, are “severely disabled by mental retardation and cerebral palsy,” Frank wrote in a Jan. 19 sentencing memo.
They received SSDI benefits intended to pay for food, housing and “a modest amount of money each period for the girls’ incidental expenses.”
In 2004, the girls moved into Elmhurst, a residential facility in Topsham, where they lived until 2006 when, because their conditions had worsened, they were transferred to another facility operated by Progressive Housing Association, where they continue to reside.
Each year, their parents signed a contract for their care, but only paid for the first three months.
Instead, each month when the disability checks were deposited in the girls’ joint accounts, their parents immediately and automatically transferred the funds into another account, from which they paid for “their mortgage, a home equity loan, utilities, groceries, travel, restaurant meals and books,” according to the memo.
But each year, Jill Gerken certified to the Social Security Administration that she spent the benefits on her daughters’ food and housing.
The daughters should have received $109,078 in benefits between October 2006 and July 2013, the complaint said. Of that, $94,840 is owed to the facility where they lived.
The investigation began in July 2013 when a complaint alleging nonpayment for room, board and care was filed with the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Social Security Administration by Progressive Housing Association, according to the complaint.
Between September 2006 and March 2014, the couple received more than $1 million in income from various sources, including $109,000 in SSDI benefits for their daughters. But during approximately the same amount of time, the Gerkens deposited only about $4,600 into their personal spending accounts.
According to Frank, the girls’ case manager at PHA wrote in a victim impact statement that despite their physical and mental conditions, “the girls were aware of their parents’ neglect” and “were short-changed the personal spending money to which they were entitled and how that deprived them of some of the simple pleasures of life.”
On Jan. 20, 2016, the couple agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and the government agreed to dismiss the remaining counts of embezzlement from the U.S. and false swearing of statements to the Social Security Administration in the indictment.
The Gerkens’ defense attorney, Vanessa A. Bartlett, argued in a sentencing memo that because the U.S. government is named as the victim, the Gerkens’ daughters “did not suffer any harm” and “were not the target of the criminal activity.”
“Jill and Tom Gerken did not set out to target their children by stealing money so that they could go out and live the high life as the government will argue,” Bartlett wrote, adding later, “they never realized, from day one, that they were committing any crime or engaging in any misconduct by commingling these funds.”
Bartlett argued for home detention, citing Jill Gerken’s medical conditions, including scoliosis, pancreatitis, osteoarthritis and migraines, and noting that the Gerkens have been the primary caregivers for their granddaughters since her daughter and her daughter’s husband were incarcerated for theft related to drug addiction.
Frank said Monday that Torresen cited the care of the grandchildren as among her factors in sentencing the couple.
According to a release from the U.S. attorney’s office, Torresen described the Gerkens as greedy and said that a period of incarceration was necessary to reflect the seriousness of their offense, promote respect for law and provide adequate deterrence.