The Office of Inspector General disclosed that on January 28, 2025, a Kansas couple received prison sentences for unlawfully appropriating funds from a family member’s Social Security and retirement benefits long after his demise.
Lynn Ritter, 62, and Kirk Ritter, 62, from Overland Park, have pleaded guilty to wire fraud and theft of government funds, as stated in court documents. Lynn Ritter has been sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison by a federal judge, while Kirk Ritter has received a seven-month sentence.
The Overan Park couple lived with Lynn’s father, Mike Carroll, in a single-family home where Lynn served as his caretaker. On October 23, 2022, Kirk Ritter called the police to report his father-in-law’s death. When cops arrived, they found the remains in a mummified form, subsequently concluding that the individual died around July 1, 2016.
Even after his death, the father’s Social Security and pension payments kept getting deposited into his bank account. The Ritters unlawfully took a total of $68,637 in pension payments and $147,429 in Social Security payments from July 2016 onwards. Instead of reporting the death, they wrote unauthorized checks and transferred funds for their personal use. However, the couple later repaid the stolen funds during their prosecution.
Mark Underwood, the Regional Director of the Kansas City Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, emphasized the commitment of the Labor Department to ensure justice for those who steal from retirement plans.