CHARLESTON, W.Va. – A South Florida woman faces up to a decade in federal prison after authorities said she stole more than $300,000 of her late father’s West Virginia state pension benefits.
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Prosecutors said Semiha Nilgun Gencsoy, 71, of Fort Lauderdale, pleaded guilty to a charge of sale or receipt of stolen goods Tuesday in Charleston, West Virginia federal court.
According to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Gencsoy’s father was a mechanical engineering professor at West Virginia University who retired in 1985. Her mother began receiving his pension benefits when he died in June 2007; she died less than a year later.
Authorities said Gencsoy failed to notify the West Virginia Consolidated Public Retirement Board of her mother’s death and the pension benefits kept rolling in to the joint bank account she shared with her mother.
Prosecutors said from 2008 to 2023, Gencsoy took in $328,478 from more than 180 monthly survivor’s benefit pension payments.
“Gencsoy admitted that she routinely transferred the survivor benefit pension payments to a bank account she controlled solely after each direct deposit and used the money to pay for her personal expenses,” the news release states.
She now owes that money in restitution. Broward property records show Gencsoy owns a beachfront condominium along Galt Ocean Drive valued at more than $1.1 million.
Prosecutors didn’t disclose when she’s set to be sentenced. Once she finishes her prison term, she’ll spend up to three years on supervised release.