Neighbor Stole over $450,000 from Veteran with ALS, Feds Say. 'As Low as It Gets'

A Massachusetts man took “repeated, deliberate steps” to steal from his neighbor — a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was in the hospital — “again and again,” federal prosecutors wrote in court documents filed last week.

Joseph Smith, 71, and others stole more than $450,000 in disability benefits from the man between roughly 2015 and 2020, when he was hospitalized with ALS, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

There’s no cure for ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease that affects the nervous system and the ability to control one’s muscles.

After the 20-year Marine Corps veteran was diagnosed with the disease, the Veterans Benefits Administration began mailing him monthly disability checks in September 2015, prosecutors said.

Smith and others stole the checks and deposited them into bank accounts, including a bank account Smith opened in the veteran’s name, according to prosecutors. He cashed the checks for “personal expenses,” prosecutors said.

Now Smith, of New Bedford, has been sentenced to one year and 11 months in prison and ordered to pay $459,550,86 in restitution, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a Jan. 17 news release.

“Stealing from a Marine Corps veteran who bravely served for 20 years as he battled a devastating illness is about as low as it gets,” U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy said in the news release.

A federal public defender who represented Smith didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Jan. 21.

Ahead of sentencing, Levy and Benjamin A. Saltzman wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Smith would’ve continued stealing from the veteran if authorities hadn’t discovered the reported theft.

“Over more than four years, (Smith) took several steps to steal as much money as possible without getting caught,” the sentencing memorandum said.

Smith pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government benefits and one count of conspiracy to steal government benefits in September, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In the sentencing memorandum, Levy and Saltzman credited Smith for accepting “responsibility for his crimes.”

Briefcase belonging to the veteran goes missing

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Smith was charged in the case in June.

According to an affidavit filed that month, Smith was receiving Social Security retirement benefits and lived across the street from the veteran when prosecutors said he stole from him.

Before the veteran was hospitalized with ALS, he lived with his brother and one of Smith’s family members, the affidavit said.

The veteran’s brother, who died in 2022, and Smith’s relative were considered co-conspirators in the case, according to the affidavit, which didn’t include their identities.

In May 2016, while the veteran was in the hospital, he asked his daughter to retrieve his items from his New Bedford home, including a black briefcase that had “his Social Security card, debit card, military paperwork, and Massachusetts identification card,” the affidavit said.

His daughter repeatedly tried to locate the briefcase, but she never found it, according to the affidavit.

She “confronted both (her father’s brother) and (Smith’s relative) about the briefcase, but neither was cooperative,” the affidavit said.

The veteran’s brother and Smith’s family member were later found with the veteran’s Social Security card and ID card in May 2020, when a police officer caught them trying to re-open a bank account in the veteran’s name, according to the affidavit.

An ‘appalling crime’

Before Smith’s sentencing, his federal defender, Joshua Hanye, wrote in court papers that Smith was “prepared to accept the consequences of his actions.”

He said that when Smith stole from his neighbor, he was experiencing drug addiction.

“Mr. Smith was still in the grips of a crack cocaine addiction that had plagued him for more than 30 years and which at that point had led to daily use,” Hanye wrote. “That addiction was involuntarily, but fortunately, interrupted in late 2020 when he was arrested for a state cocaine offense.”

Hanye argued in support of a sentence of one year and six months for Smith, before a judge ultimately sentenced him one year and 11 months in prison, the sentencing memorandum showed.

“Military veterans deserve our highest reverence and respect,” Ketty Larco-Ward, the inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Boston division, said in the news release.

“Joseph Smith egregiously stole a disabled veteran’s benefits to enrich himself,” Larco-Ward said, and added that he was sentenced “for his appalling crime.”

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