How far would you go to protect your children?

Detroiter who stole to feed 5 grandkids is facing prison

Her mentally ill son was in prison.

Her daughter was battling drug addiction.

And her five grandchildren were in danger of being sent to foster care.

So Mary Alice Austin of Detroit, who said she needed money to raise the grandkids, paid someone to pose as her son so she could continue receiving his disability benefits, court records show.

During the 20 years her son was in prison, Austin, 67, received nearly $120,000 in Social Security benefits, records show. Now, she may be headed to prison after pleading guilty to the fraud. She is to be sentenced Friday.

U.S. census figures show nearly 88,000 grandparents in metro Detroit are living with their grandchildren -- 40% of those are the primary caregiver.

Often, grandparents step in when their own children are lost to drugs, crime or mental illness. Then they may fear losing their grandkids, too, experts said.

Austin's lawyer and grandchildren are pleading for mercy.

"My grandmother has been in my life since I was born. If she hadn't (been), no telling what would of happened to me or my siblings," one grandson wrote to the judge.

Detroiter stole from U.S. to feed her grandkids

In the last decade, Juanita Bridgewater has seen hundreds of scared and frustrated grandparents at her support group meetings, struggling to cope with the hardships of raising their grandchildren because their own children can't.

They have health and financial issues. They are embarrassed their own kids failed as parents. And more than anything, Bridgewater said, they're scared of losing their grandkids -- either to the streets or foster care.

"They do not want that grandchild to go to the system," said Bridgewater, chair and founder of the 10-year-old Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Committee in Detroit. "That's what I hear from my grandparents. And they will go to whatever lengths there are to keep their grandchildren."

One 67-year-old Detroit grandmother resorted to fraud, court documents show.

On Friday, Mary Alice Austin will be sentenced for unlawfully accepting her son's Social Security checks, pretending to care for him even though he was in prison for 20 years for armed robbery and drug offenses. Under a plea deal, she faces 10 to 16 months in prison.

Court documents show Austin paid someone to pose as her mentally disabled son to get his government checks.

Austin, who was raising her five grandchildren, stole nearly $120,000 during two decades -- about $6,000 a year.

Austin's family members and attorney say she was just trying to survive.

The government maintains she broke the law, using deception and trickery.

This is her story, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court.

Widowed at 50

Austin was thrust into the role of caretaker early. She was born in Mississippi and moved to Detroit at a young age.

At 16, her parents divorced, and she became the primary caretaker of her siblings because her mother was disabled.

Austin had three children of her own, and was widowed at 50. She became a grandmother of five and eventually became their primary caretaker.

A daughter with a drug addiction and mental heath issues couldn't care for her four children. Her son, who had one child, had been on disability benefits since age 13. He was sent to prison after being convicted in 1990 on charges of armed robbery and substance abuse.

In 1993, Austin got a job as a nursing assistant at numerous nursing homes, where she made between $8,000 and $10,000 a year.

It wasn't enough to raise five kids. But she did have some extra money: her son's Social Security checks, which continued to come because she never reported he was in prison.

Instead, she pretended he lived with her and that she took care of him. Austin signed a Social Security Administration document in 1996 stating her son still lived with her.

In 2002, she paid someone to pose as her son at a Social Security office. The impersonator also underwent two medical exams that were mandated by the government to make sure the son was still eligible for benefits. Austin was present for the exams.

The scheme worked. Austin received $119,100 in Social Security checks from 1990 to 2009.

"Although Ms. Austin regrettably continued to accept her son's Social Security checks unlawfully, she did not use the money to live beyond her means or to live a lavish lifestyle," Austin's lawyer, Natasha Webster, wrote in court documents.

Leniency sought

Webster is pleading for leniency on behalf of her client. She has asked U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts to sentence Austin to home confinement rather than prison.

"Significantly, she has accepted responsibility for her actions," Webster wrote. Austin's two grandsons also have written the judge letters.

One, age 12, writes: "We didn't have much but what we did have she made it work ... I'm just asking you don't take my grandmom away from us."

But Austin must pay a price for her crimes, including "some period of incarceration," Assistant U.S. Attorney Blondell Morey argued in court documents.

"There is little need in this case to deter or protect the public from a 67-year-old grandmother," Morey wrote in a March 23 filing. "However, defendant must be punished for a crime that earned her over $100,000 and took place over 20 years."

Morey also pointed out that Austin has a criminal record, including a conviction for welfare fraud, which happened during the Social Security scheme.

"This was not a crime of opportunity, but one committed over two decades," Morey wrote. "Her most egregious acts were hiring, on three separate occasions, someone to impersonate her son to the Social Security Administration."

Had the government not caught her, he wrote, the crime would have continued.

Broken families

Austin is part of a growing issue in the U.S. -- grandparents caring for grandchildren, statistics show.

Currently, about 7 million children live with a grandparent, up from 4.5 million in 2000, according to U.S. census figures.

In metro Detroit, about 88,000 grandparents live with their grandchildren, up slightly from nearly 85,000 in 2000.

Broken families in America are causing some serious hardships for grandparents -- even great-grandparents -- who are struggling to fulfill their new parenting duties, Bridgewater said.

"There are a lot of them," Bridgewater said of grandparent caregivers. "And the pressure is on them."

At her monthly support group meetings, which draw about 30 people, Bridgewater said she has heard countless sad stories.

"Sometimes, grandparents come because they just want to talk, and know that they are not in this by themselves," she said.