Santa Ana Woman Sentenced for Theft

A Santa Ana woman was sentenced Tuesday to two years in a federal prison for collecting nearly $200,000 in pension benefits for her deceased father, authorities said.

After Luciano Garcia, a U.S. Navy veteran, died in 1987, his adopted daughter, Sonya Fernandez, 39, failed to notify the federal government, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

After her father’s death, Fernandez continued to accept federal retirement benefits that were electronically filed into her bank account by the Social Security Administration, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Authorities said Fernandez collected and converted into her own use more than $95,000 from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and more than $90,000 in Social Security benefits.

An investigation into Fernandez’s finances revealed that she falsified income declarations on federal and state welfare agencies, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

On April 29, Fernandez pleaded guilty to two felony counts of theft and two felony counts of submitting false statements to an agency of the U.S. government, authorities said.

She was sentenced to two years in a federal prison and ordered to pay more than $250,000 in restitution to the federal agencies, officials with the U.S. attorney’s office said.