Woman who stole workers’ comp benefits mean for her dead mother is sentenced

GOSHEN – A woman, who stole close to $40,000 in workers’ compensation benefits meant for her long-deceased mother, was sentenced in Orange County Court on Monday to six months in the county jail, five years of probation and full restitution of the funds.
Sheryl Colson, also known as Sheryl McClure, 47, of New Concord, Kentucky, pled guilty in May to felony grand larceny.
An investigation by state Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott found that Colson’s mother, a former nurse at Orange-Ulster BOCES in Goshen, had been injured on the job in 1997 and began receiving workers’ comp benefits from the school. The mother moved to Kentucky in 2007 and died 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 she died.  She used some of the money for general household expenses and bills, but also to pay restaurant tabs and buy products from an Indiana company specializing in the production of hand-blown glass pipes and other smoking devices.