Jailed Man to Keep Receiving Checks

Hugh “Randy” McDonald, the Newport Beach lawyer accused of faking his own death after allegedly killing a businessman’s wife, will continue receiving $1,500 monthly disability checks while in jail.

Federal officials said Tuesday that people accused of crimes can continue to draw payments behind bars. Officials stop the benefits only if an inmate is convicted and sentenced to more than a year and a day in custody.

“They have earned the right to that benefit,” said Social Security Administration spokeswoman Leslie Walker. “Until a judge says what their sentence should be, Congress feels they shouldn’t be penalized.”

Prosecutors have charged McDonald with the May 1997 killing of Janie Pang, the wife of a businessman whose company hired the 52-year-old attorney’s firm for legal work. McDonald has yet to enter a plea to the charges. But friends of the attorney insist he is innocent.

McDonald could receive benefits as an inmate for years, depending on how long it takes for his criminal case to come to trial.

Because his room, board and medical care are now covered by the county, he can use the disability checks however he wants, from paying legal bills to buying candy and other items in the jail store. Before his arrest, he used the money to live on.

Federal officials do not track the exact number of inmates collecting disability payments.

But they estimate that they stop payments to about a dozen inmates in the Orange County jail every month after convictions. In Los Angeles County, about 45 inmates each month lose benefits.

McDonald, 52, was arrested and charged last week in the May 1997 shooting of a Villa Park woman.

Authorities allege that in the days after the killing the attorney staged his suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge, then altered his appearance and lived for four years under a series of aliases.

Sheriff’s officials said McDonald received at least $20,000 in disability checks that the federal government sent to a bank account held in his real name, even as police were searching for him in connection with the slaying.

McDonald will join dozens of inmates in Orange County jail who collect similar benefits, which are based on the amount of money someone has contributed to the federal program during his or her working life.

The system for tracking such benefits inside jails was beefed up in recent years after the government funneled nearly $80,000 in Social Security benefits to serial killer William Bonin during his 14 years on death row.

After the error, Congress allowed county jails to collect about $400 every time they helped federal officials find an inmate who no longer qualified for benefits.

But prisoners who have not been convicted of crimes and are awaiting trial remain eligible for benefits.

The victim of the killing, Janie Pang, was killed after her maid opened the front door to a clean-cut man wearing a business suit.

The man talked casually with Pang and then drew a pistol, sheriff’s officials said.

As the maid spirited two of Pang’s three children out a back door, the gunman chased Pang throughout the house, eventually catching up with her as she hid in a bedroom closet, detectives said.