Heaton Sentenced to State Prison in Access Device Fraud Case

LOCK HAVEN – A Lock Haven man will spend 57 to 132 months in state prison, sentenced in Clinton County Court on Monday after admitting he used bank and food stamp cards from a woman whose death he concealed for more than a year.

Rodney Lee Heaton, 53, recently entered a guilty plea to multiple counts including forgery, identity theft, access device fraud and theft.

Clinton County President Judge Craig P. Miller imposed the sentence on Heaton. He had been arrested in late December and accused by Lock Haven police of using the bank and Access cards of Teresa Hannah Hill, 59, the woman whose decomposed body was found wrapped in carpeting at her Corning St. residence on Dec. 22 of last year. City police said Heaton had been using her identity since she died in July 2015.

After an autopsy on the woman county coroner Zach Hanna said the cause of death was “probable acute multi-drug effect,” the manner of death undetermined. Strouse later said there is no indication of foul play.

In court on Monday Heaton’s attorney Paul Ryan said the defendant had used the money not only for himself but to support Hill’s children. District attorney Dave Strouse noted that Heaton concealed the woman’s death for 17 months, was dishonest with police when found out, and called the facts in the case disturbing and deplorable.

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