No Prison For Michigan Woman In NFL Pension Fraud
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - The Detroit-area daughter of an ex-Chicago Bears player has been sentenced to six months in a halfway house for collecting about $70,000 from an NFL retirement fund after her dad died.
Detroit federal Judge David Lawson said Constance Helwig-Langlois qualified for prison for the "serial crime," but he accepted the government's request to give her a break Thursday. She also must repay about $50,000 illegally collected from an annuity. Living at a halfway house lets her work during the day.
John Helwig played for the Bears in the 1950s. He died in 1994, but retirement checks kept coming. The government says Helwig's wife told the NFL retirement plan that he was still alive and continued to illegally cash the checks for 13 years until she died in 2007. Their daughter kept the scheme going until 2011.
Helwig-Langlois apologized and said she suffers from depression.
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