A thief was able to swipe subsidy checks totalling $121,000 from a foster parent for years after she died because the city’s child- welfare department doesn’t match its rolls with the Social Security Administration’s death register, authorities said Wednesday.
The startling oversight by the Administration for Children’s Services allowed Delaware resident Pamela Keller to cash four years of checks destined for the Brooklyn foster parent, who died in June 2008, according to the Department of Investigation.
Keller was arrested Wednesday.
She allegedly siphoned the city’s money from ATMs in Delaware between January 2008 and March 2012 after getting someone else to forge the dead parent’s name on subsidy checks for deposit.
The scam was exposed only after child-welfare officials learned of the death of the genuine foster parent in June 2012, the DOI said.
The ACS declined comment.
Keller, 49, was charged with grand larceny, forgery and criminal possession and could face up to 21 years in prison.