WA social worker sentenced to 5 months in prison for stealing Social Security benefits from disabled child

( Post Millennial )

A former social worker in Bellevue, Washington, was ordered into custody to serve a five-month prison sentence after stealing more than $17,000 in Social Security benefits intended for a disabled minor who was a ward of the Snoqualmie Tribe.

Akeatha Diane Akintola, 48, pleaded guilty to theft of public funds after prosecutors said she stole $17,638 from the child, who has intellectual disabilities and was receiving survivor benefits after the death of the child’s mother, the Department of Justice said.

Akintola became a social worker for the Snoqualmie Tribe in January 2023. Months later, in September 2023, she applied by phone to become the child’s Social Security representative payee, despite tribal policy prohibiting social workers from taking on that role for children under the Tribe’s care.

Prosecutors said Akintola used both the child’s Social Security number and her own to gain access to the benefits, then directed the money into a bank account she controlled. She spent the funds for her own benefit, including at least one purchase at a North Bend retailer.

At sentencing, Magistrate Judge S. Kate Vaughan said Akintola had “targeted a vulnerable victim,” adding there was “no one more vulnerable” than the child in the case. Vaughan called the crime an “ethical breach beyond imagining.”

The scheme was uncovered in July 2024, after Akintola accompanied her supervisor to the Social Security Administration to determine what had happened to the child’s funds. When officials said Akintola was listed as the representative payee, she denied it to her supervisor. She resigned from the Snoqualmie Tribe the following day.

A tribal representative told the court that a social worker is supposed to be “a safekeeper” and “a protector for children who have been stripped of their safety, family, and stability.”

“Ms. Akintola did not just fail in that duty; she weaponized her position of power to systematically steal from a grieving, autistic child,” the representative said, adding that the money “was not a luxury” but “a lifeline.”

Akintola had originally been scheduled to plead and be sentenced on May 22, 2026, but failed to appear. Prosecutors said she had left the United States two days earlier and traveled to Togo in West Africa using a passport issued under a different last name.

She appeared in court on Monday, where Judge Vaughan ordered her taken into custody immediately to begin serving a five-month prison sentence. Akintola was also ordered to pay $17,638 in restitution to the Social Security Administration and is barred from serving as a Social Security representative payee in the future.