SAN DIEGO - The U.S. attorney's office announced late Wednesday afternoon that a grand jury has indicted a 63-year-old woman on charges alleging that she embezzled more than $120,000 in military veteran's survivor benefits over a 10-year period.

Linda Bent Lampert is scheduled to be arraigned on the 36-count indictment Monday, federal prosecutors said in a news release.

Lampert is alleged to have received benefits through the Dependency Indemnity Compensation program, which provides money to the unmarried, surviving spouses of military veterans who have died. Lampert's mother was eligible to receive the benefits from December 1975 until her death in August 1996, but Lampert continued to receive the payments after her mother died, according to federal prosecutors.

Lampert is alleged to have forged her mother's signature in August 2003 on a document submitted to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which administers the program, federal prosecutors said in the news release.

- Scott Marshall