BOYNTON BEACH, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2026 MetroDesk Media, LLC) — A Boynton Beach man is facing multiple felony charges after investigators say he kept cashing his dead mother’s insurance benefits by forging her signature for more than a year. Joseph Anthony Gallo, 63, was arrested following an investigation by the Florida Department of Financial Services, which accused him of insurance fraud, uttering a forged document, criminal use of the personal identification of a deceased person, and running an organized scheme to defraud.
According to investigators in a report reviewed by BocaNewsNow.com, Gallo’s mother, Lucy Capezza, died at Bethesda Hospital West on July 18, 2023. The two had shared a home together in Wellington. Despite her death, investigators say Gallo signed his mother’s name on paperwork submitted to the New York State Insurance Fund in November 2023, and again in May 2024, allowing him to keep collecting roughly $600 a month in benefits that stopped being valid the moment she died.
Investigators say the scheme wasn’t discovered until September 2024, when the insurance company realized Capezza had been dead for more than a year. By then, about $18,000 had been deposited into a joint bank account Gallo shared with his mother. The fund managed to claw back $3,000, but investigators say the rest, roughly $15,000, was gone. Detectives say repeated attempts to reach Gallo about the discrepancy went nowhere.
Gallo was booked on the felony charges stemming from the Department of Financial Services’ Bureau of Insurance Fraud investigation. He was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on Friday and released early Saturday morning on $30,000 bond.
