For almost six years, a Social Security disability account kept receiving money after the woman it was meant for had died, and a man who lived with her took it out of ATMs month after month. A federal court in Boston has now ordered him to pay all of it back. Christopher D. Leon, 56, a former Haverhill resident, was sentenced on September 30, 2026, to one day in prison, deemed served, and three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs also ordered Leon to pay $87,817 in restitution, the amount prosecutors say he received in Social Security disability benefits between November 2019 and August 2025. The case turns on a situation many families face quietly: what to do when a beneficiary dies and the deposits do not stop. Families settling the affairs of a person on disability or retirement benefits face the same question about payments that arrive afterward, and this case shows where treating them as spendable can end…