North Attleboro Woman Sentenced for Stealing Benefits from Disabled Man

BOSTON – A North Attleboro woman was sentenced today for stealing $32,439 in government benefits from a disabled man whose financial affairs she was managing.

Wendy Mairle, 49, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Senior Judge Mark L. Wolf to 24 months of probation, with the first six months to be served in home confinement, and ordered to pay restitution of $32,439.  In April 2015, Mairle pleaded guilty to converting Social Security payments.

In 2012, Mairle became the representative payee for the monthly Social Security disability payments of a man who was in full-time residential treatment at a local hospital.  As a representative payee, Mairle was required to spend the Social Security payments on the man’s behalf.  From May 2012 to May 2014, Mairle received $45,255 from the Social Security Administration, but she only spent $12,816 on the disabled man’s behalf and spent the remaining $32,439 on herself, including a vacation to Myrtle Beach, S.C., retail and restaurant purchases, and more than $17,000 in cash withdrawals.  Meanwhile, she failed to pay most of the victim’s hospital bills, leaving him more than $20,000 in debt to the hospital.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz and Scott Antolik, Special Agent in Charge of the Social Security Administration, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations, Boston Field Division, made the announcement today.  The case was prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Landry of Ortiz’s Major Crimes Unit.