Robert Wozniak
The Bedford County man charged with storing his dead grandmother’s body in a barrel while cashing her social security checks was sentenced today to time served on the federal government fraud charges. 48-year-old Robert Wozniak had been jailed for about seven months. He was ordered to repay the government $16,500 in restitution. The body was discovered after Wozniak’s landlord sensed something suspicious.
(Continue reading for the full U.S. Attorney’s Office news release.)
LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA – Acting United States Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle announced the sentencing of a Vinton man who previously pled guilty to stealing funds from the Social Security Administration. Robert Wozniak, 48, of Vinton, Va., previously pled guilty to one count of theft of government property and one count social security fraud. Today in District Court, Wozniak was sentenced to time served and two years of supervised released. In addition, Wozniak was ordered to pay $16,500 in
restitution and a $200 special assessment. According to evidence presented in court by Assistant United States Attorney Charlene R. Day, Wozniak admitted previously that from July 2015 through April 2016 he stole Social Security Administration funds, namely retirement benefit payments, intended for Wozniak’s deceased grandmother,
for which he was not entitled. The indictment specifically claims that Wozniak intentionally concealed his grandmother’s death in order to continue to receive and spend the retirement benefit payments made by the Social Security Admiration to his grandmother. The defendant admitted that he concealed the body of his dead grandmother, Betty Wozniak in a freezer and later a barrel for months after she died in order to continue receiving her Social Security payments. Investigators discovered the body after Wozniak’s landlord became suspicious about the barrel and a hole she noticed in the property Robert Wozniak was renting from her.
