Staff
The daughter of a late John Helwig, former Chicago Bears player from the 1950s, is accused of illegally collecting money from an NFL pension plan years after her father’s death.
Constance Helwig-Langlois was charged December 19 with fraud in Detroit. Federal prosecutors say the NFL retirement plan kept sending checks to John Helwig’s Detroit-area address after his 1994 death.
Court documents allege that Helwig’s wife, Ruth, twice told officials that her husband still was alive. Ruth Helwig died in 2007.
The government says their daughter kept the scheme going until 2011, and that the erroneous payments added up to more than $200,000 over 17 years.