SALT ROCK, WV (LOOTPRESS) – A Salt Rock man is facing multiple felony charges after admitting to spending more than $20,000 in workers’ compensation benefits that continued to be deposited into his deceased relative’s bank account for nearly a year after his death.
According to investigators, Ronald Eugene Lovejoy was added to the bank account of Calvin Lyndol Perry in March 2020, more than a year before Perry’s death on August 23, 2021. Perry, a former Boilermakers Union member, had been receiving monthly disability payments of $2,053.13 following a 1987 workplace injury.
Despite Perry’s passing—verified by a death certificate from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources—Sedgwick, the state’s workers’ compensation administrator, continued issuing monthly payments into the shared bank account until May 2022. In total, ten payments totaling $20,531.30 were deposited posthumously.
On July 19, 2024, Special Agent Johnson interviewed Lovejoy at his home on Tyler Creek Road. After being read his Miranda rights, Lovejoy confessed to knowingly spending the funds. He told the agent he used the money to pay off a tractor and cover other personal expenses, acknowledging that he knew it was wrong and that he would have to repay it.
Lovejoy, who had been listed as the executor of Perry’s estate, is now facing criminal charges including:
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Fraudulent Insurance Acts
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Obtaining by False Pretenses
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Fraudulent Schemes
Authorities are continuing the investigation and urge individuals managing estates to report any continued benefit payments made in error to prevent similar cases of fraud.
