ALBANY – A Kentucky woman is accused of stealing nearly $40,000 in Workers’ Compensation benefits meant for her long-deceased mother, a former Orange-Ulster BOCES employee.
Sheryl Colson, also known as Sheryl McClure, 47, of Concord, Kentucky, was indicted by an Orange County grand jury on a charge of felony grand larceny. She was arrested in Kentucky, extradited to New York and arraigned on Monday in Orange County Court.
An investigation by state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott found that Colson’s mother, a former nurse at Orange-Ulster BOCES in Goshen, was injured on the job in 1997 and began collecting Workers’ Comp benefits from the school.
Colson’s mother moved to Kentucky in 2007 and passed away in 2011, but the $400-per-week checks kept coming from BOCES, which is self-insured. Colson had access to her mother’s financial affairs and continued signing the checks, depositing them into her mother’s bank account and using the account’s debit card to make purchases for more than two years after her mother died.
Purchases included payments of general household expenses and bills, restaurant tabs, and products from an Indiana company specializing in the production of hand-blown glass pipes and other smoking devices. In total, Colson is accused of stealing $39,850 in benefits to which she was not entitled between January 8, 2011 and January 20, 2013.
Colson was sent to the Orange County Jail in lieu of $39,850 cash bail or $100,000 bond.
