The $64,000 question: Did she steal her dead grandparents’ Social Security checks?

Federal prosecutors say Fort Lauderdale’s Myriam Etienne decided life goes on after her grandfather Hermann Etienne died in 2006 and her grandmother Genevieve died in 2008.

Life goes on as far as Social Security, that is. Myriam Etienne, 49, is charged in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale with concealing her grandparents’ death and pocketing their Social Security benefits. She faces 90 counts of theft of government property, one count for each of their monthly checks from October 2012 through June 2016.

Though prosecutors claim a total of $125,000 in Social Security checks went into an account Etienne shared with her grandparents, she’s charged only with cashing the 90 checks worth $64,920 from the aforementioned time period. In addition to 10 years in prison, she’s facing the loss of the certified nursing assistant license she’s held since 1996.

Etienne’s free after posting $100,000 bond Monday.

This story was originally published October 3, 2017 at 6:08 PM with the headline "The $64,000 question: Did she steal her dead grandparents’ Social Security checks?."