Authorities charged the daughter of a deceased\u00a0Scranton\u00a0firefighter with collecting nearly $100,000 of his pension benefits over five years.<\/p>\n
Stacey Ann Bouton, 48, of\u00a01341 Bryn Mawr St.,\u00a0Scranton, faces multiple felony counts of theft, forgery and identity theft.<\/p>\n
The investigation began on\u00a0Sept. 20, when pension board Solicitor\u00a0Larry Durkin\u00a0of the Durkin MacDonald law firm of\u00a0Dunmore\u00a0contacted\u00a0Scranton\u00a0police regarding potential fraud.<\/p>\n
The pension funds originated with\u00a0Robert Matticks, who was retired from the department in\u00a0August 1998\u00a0and was approved for his pension that same month. Pension documents named\u00a0Henrietta Matticks\u00a0as his \u201csurvivor beneficiary.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family appropriately informed the department of Robert Matticks\u2019 death in 2013, and\u00a0Henrietta Matticks\u00a0began receiving a widow\u2019s benefit. She requested the funds be deposited into a\u00a0Fidelity Bank\u00a0account she shared with her deceased husband and Bouton, her daughter.<\/p>\n
A \u201cdirect deposit summary\u201d sent to\u00a0Henrietta Matticks\u00a0at that time clearly states any deposits made after her death were to be returned.<\/p>\n
On\u00a0Sept. 20, the pension board was reviewing a list of pension fund recipients and noticed\u00a0Henrietta Matticks\u00a0\u2014 who died\u00a0June 10, 2020\u00a0\u2014 was still on the list.<\/p>\n
Pension board President\u00a0Gary DeStefano\u00a0was notified and immediately stopped payments to the account.<\/p>\n
Officials determined that, after Henrietta Matticks\u2019 death, direct deposits continued to be made to the Fidelity account, totaling $10,051 in 2020; $18,545 in 2021; $18,542 in 2022; $18,542 in 2023; $18,542 in 2024, and $2,300 in 2025, totaling $86,524.<\/p>\n
On\u00a0Feb. 28, 2025,\u00a0Fidelity Bank\u00a0began rejecting the direct deposits because the account had been closed.<\/p>\n
Mellon Bank, which issued the funds and had never been notified of Henrietta Matticks\u2019 death, began sending paper checks to Bouton\u2019s address, which she had shared with her mother.<\/p>\n
A total of 15 checks were issued from\u00a0March 5, 2025, until the alleged theft was discovered. The checks were cashed with signatures from Bouton and what appeared to be\u00a0Henrietta Matticks, who was deceased at the time they were issued. Those checks totaled $9,938.<\/p>\n
The loss to the pension fund from 2020 to 2025 is reported to be $96,463 dollars.<\/p>\n
A warrant has been issued for Matticks, who had not turned herself in as of\u00a01 p.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Civil case filed<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on\u00a0Dec. 9, the\u00a0Scranton Firefighters Pension Fund\u00a0sued Bouton in\u00a0Lackawanna County Court\u00a0for damages in excess of $50,000.<\/p>\n
The allegations in the criminal complaint generally echo claims made in the lawsuit, including that Bouton did not inform the fund of her mother\u2019s death and continued to collect the pension payments; and Bouton in February of 2025 closed the joint bank account with her parents that got direct deposits, and later forged her deceased mother\u2019s signature on pension checks and deposited them into a Bouton bank account.<\/p>\n
\u201cStacey Bouton\u2019s actions were a deliberate theft of\u00a0Pension Fund\u00a0proceeds,\u201d according to the lawsuit filed by Durkin.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit cites counts of conversion\/theft, fraud, unjust enrichment and breach of trust.On\u00a0Jan. 12, a default judgment in that lawsuit was entered in court in favor of the plaintiff\u00a0Pension Fund\u00a0against defendant Bouton for a total of $126,521.<\/p>\n
Jim Lockwood, staff writer, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 The Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pa.). Visit\u00a0thetimes-tribune.com<\/a>. Distributed by\u00a0Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Authorities charged the daughter of a deceased\u00a0Scranton\u00a0firefighter with collecting nearly $100,000 of his pension benefits over five years.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-125160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}