BETHEL – The former tax collector for the Town of Bethel has been arrested for allegedly stealing unearned benefits from the state pension fund.
Debra Gabriel, who resigned and retired in August 2020, is alleged to have submitted a false record of activities with the town for filing with the state comptroller.
Those documents record individuals’ work hours to determine if they are full-time or part-time with the information used to calculate their service time for retirement benefits.
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said an investigation revealed that from April 1, 2009 to August 31, 2019, Gabriel falsely claimed credit for full-time work for the town when her actual hours were far less.
In one time period in 2018 and 2019, she had a fulltime job with a private health care company, while claiming to also have worked full time as a tax collector for Bethel.
Her claim falsely increased her service credit toward retirement by more than seven years, DiNapoli said.
As a result, it is alleged that her monthly benefit was falsely inflated by $290 each month from the time of her retirement on August 31, 2019 to June 30, 2021 and she was paid $6,300 to which she was not entitled.
She was charged with grand larceny, corrupting the government, defrauding the retirement system, and offering a false instrument for filing.
