A man from Missouri has been charged at the federal level in connection with the death of his uncle, a US Army veteran with quadriplegia. The accusation is that he concealed his uncle’s death for five years while illegally obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in disability benefits.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri reports that Brian K. Ditch, who was assigned to care for his uncle beginning in 2008, secretly kept his uncle confined in a garage while misappropriating his benefits.

Rather than providing proper care to his uncle, Ditch allegedly confined him to the garage for more than a day at a time. This left his uncle without assistance, unable to move, and without access to food or water, forcing him to endure unhygienic conditions. Ditch is facing charges that include four counts of wire fraud, four counts of aggravated identity theft, two counts of theft of government property, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, as detailed in the indictment.

Ditch’s uncle died in 2019, and he kept his body hidden and the death unreported “so that he could continue to receive the money,” the indictment says. Ditch told relatives that he had moved his uncle into a nursing home.

Ditch misappropriated $9,559 per month from the US Department of Veterans Affairs and nearly $250,000 in Social Security disability benefits, using the money to “buy exotic reptiles, fund lavish vacations, and enrich himself.”

Investigators found the uncle’s frozen body in a trash can in March. Officials say he stole at least $650,000.