ALBANY, New York — A 60-year-old Pelham man who worked as the caretaker of his retired-teacher neighbour pleaded guilty on Monday, November 2, to stealing $141,968 in state pension payments that kept flowing into the dead man's bank account for years after his death, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced.
Source: New York Attorney General's Office
Danilo Pesce pleaded guilty to Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree, a Class E felony, before Judge Andra Ackerman in Albany County Court. At the same hearing he paid $147,000 in restitution to the New York State Teachers Retirement Fund — the full amount taken, plus $6,000 in interest, according to the Attorney General's office.
How the money kept flowing after Morgan's death
The pension belonged to Jack Lee Morgan, who retired from the Pelham school district in 1991 and was a pensioner of the New York State Teachers' Retirement System (NYSTRS). Morgan died in March 2020. He had no living beneficiary, so his pension should have stopped — but NYSTRS was never notified of his death, and the system went on depositing $3,497 a month into his bank account, the Attorney General's investigation found.
Before Morgan's death, Pesce had acted as his caretaker. In that role he was added to Morgan's bank account and to the deed of Morgan's home in Pelham, a village in Westchester County just north of New York City. Beginning on March 17, 2020 — less than a month after Morgan died — Pesce regularly withdrew money from the account he controlled, investigators say. He spent the money on maintenance and renovation of Morgan's house, where Pesce and his wife were living part-time. The withdrawals eventually totalled $141,968.
From a Class C felony charge to a Class E plea
Pesce was arrested on July 30, 2026, and arraigned on a more serious charge — Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, a Class C felony carrying five to 15 years in prison — after a grand jury indictment accused him of taking more than $143,000 between March 17, 2020 and April 30, 2024. He pleaded not guilty at that stage. Monday's plea to the lesser fourth-degree count, on the final figure of $141,968 set out in the Attorney General's announcement, closes the case without a trial. The announcement did not include a prison sentence or a sentencing date.
“Danilo Pesce took advantage of the retirement system that thousands of hard-working New York teachers rely on,” Attorney General James said. “This heartless theft should serve as a reminder that my office will not tolerate anyone who breaks the law to steal from their neighbors.”
The case was investigated by the Office of the Attorney General, with Detective Dennis Churns of its Major Investigations Bureau leading the inquiry and help from the New York State Police Financial Crimes Unit. Assistant Attorney General Christopher Baynes is prosecuting the case, and forensic auditors from the Attorney General's office traced the withdrawals.
Source: Utica Phoenix, reporting the Attorney General's announcement
Why officials say this case is a warning to every pension family
NYSTRS pays retirement benefits to teachers across New York state, and cases like this one turn on a simple administrative step: when a pensioner dies, the retirement system must be told, or the payments continue automatically into an account that someone else may be able to reach. The Attorney General's office presented the plea as part of a wider run of benefits-fraud prosecutions — including a July 2026 Suffolk County case over more than $100,000 in Social Security disability benefits and a 2022 guilty plea by a Hempstead woman who took over $240,000 in NYSTRS pension payments issued to her own deceased mother.
For families — including many Punjabi and South Asian households in the New York area who look after elderly parents, sometimes through a relative, neighbour or paid caretaker with access to the older person's accounts — the case is a practical warning. Joint access to a senior's bank account, granted for convenience or care, can become the mechanism of a theft that runs quietly for years. NYSTRS maintains a fraud hotline, 800-348-7298, extension 2846, for reporting suspected pension fraud.
What happens next
The restitution has already been paid to the Teachers Retirement Fund. What remains is sentencing in Albany County Court: the Attorney General's announcement set out no sentence and no date, but Grand Larceny in the Fourth Degree is a Class E felony under New York law, a category that carries a maximum prison term of four years. Pesce's guilty plea means there will be no trial on the original second-degree charge, which prosecutors had said could have brought five to 15 years.