Woman Admits Stealing Dead Mother's Benefit Checks

A Niagara Falls woman has pleaded guilty to workers’ compensation fraud after forging her dead mother’s name on benefit checks her mother had been receiving since the work-related death of her husband 20 years earlier. Virginia Donahue, 58, offered the plea Wednesday in Niagara Falls City Court to attempted petty larceny and paid full restitution of $1,113.80, said state Workers’ Compensation Fraud Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott. Donahue’s mother began receiving benefits after her husband died in 1997 from a long-term, work-related illness. Donahue was n...