On February 14, 2024, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Jacqueline C. Romero, the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration Gail S. Ennis, the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that the son of a deceased retiree of the New York State Employees' Retirement Plan who stole $194,000 of New York State retirement benefits paid to his deceased father was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay full restitution.
Comptroller DiNapoli said “Timothy Gritman shamelessly hid his own father’s death, going so far as to attempt to disguise himself as him in order to collect his pension and Social Security payments for more than four years” and “Thanks to the work of my investigative team and our partners in law enforcement, he has been held accountable. My office will continue to bring anyone who seeks to defraud the pension system to justice.”
“Timothy Gritman chose dollars and cents over a dignified death for his dad,” said U.S. Attorney Romero and “He had been living off of his father Ralph’s retirement benefits for years, even before his father’s passing — and after it, went to significant lengths to keep that money coming in. With today’s sentence, he’s finally being made to answer for his criminal greed.”
“Timothy Gritman schemed to obtain the Social Security retirement benefits intended for his deceased father. His behavior is unacceptable, and this sentence holds him accountable for his criminal actions,” said Social Security Inspector General Ennis. “I thank our law enforcement partners and the New York State Comptroller’s Office for their efforts in investigating, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Curran for prosecuting this case.”
New York state pensioner Ralph Gritman retired from the Nassau County Clerk’s Office in 1992 and moved to Wyoming from Pennsylvania with his son, Timothy Gritman, in August 2017. In September 2017, Medicare records showed he went to a hospital emergency room in Wyoming. This was the last existing record of the father.
The father and son shared a joint bank account where Ralph’s retirement benefits were electronically deposited. Both Ralph Gritman’s pension and Social Security benefits were to cease upon his death, but Timothy Gritman concealed his father’s death in order to continue to receive his retirement benefits. In his attempts to impersonate his deceased father, he used makeup to whiten his hair and eyebrows.
In 2019, Timothy Gritman told a family member that his father had died several years earlier but would not say where he was buried or what had happened to his body. Ralph Gritman’s body still has not been located.
A call to DiNapoli’s Fraud Hotline led to a joint investigation and the suspension of Ralph Gritman’s pension payments and the investigation that led to his son’s arrest.
Gritman was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia M. Rufe in Philadelphia.
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Since taking office in 2007, DiNapoli has committed to fighting public corruption and encourages the public to help fight fraud and abuse. Allegations of fraud involving taxpayer money may be reported by calling the Retirement Systems toll-free Fraud Hotline at 1-888-672-4555, or by mailing a complaint to the Office of the State Comptroller, Division of Investigations, 8th Floor, 110 State St., Albany, NY 12236, or filing online at https://www.osc.state.ny.us/investigations.