AUGUSTA — An Oakland woman will serve jail time for stealing almost $42,000 in state welfare benefits.

Laura M. Mathieu, 51, already is doing three years on federal probation for unlawfully obtaining more than $35,000 in Social Security assistance from December 2008 to March 2013.

The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Darcy Mitchell, told a judge Tuesday morning that Mathieu portrayed herself as a poor, sick, single mother for the six-year period she received benefits when actually her husband was living in the household, working full time for the town of Oakland and contributing to the household income.

After Mathieu pleaded guilty to theft by deception in a courtroom at the Capital Judicial Center, Mitchell and defense attorney Brad Grant jointly recommended that Judge Andrew Benson sentence Mathieu to a three-year jail term and two years of probation. But they disagreed about how much time Mathieu should spend behind bars.

The state, through Mitchell, sought a nine-month period of initial incarceration. In contrast, Grant asked the judge to suspend all the jail time, as a federal judge did when Mathieu was sentenced in May 2014 for stealing more than $35,000 from the Social Security Administration by lying on her application to that agency as well.

“I became very desperate,” Mathieu told Benson, speaking haltingly in a voice that sounded choked up. “Medical bills climbed up, and I didn’t know what to do and where to turn.”

She apologized to the court and to “everybody in the state of Maine.”

Benson ordered Mathieu to spend an initial 90 days in jail and suspended the remainder of the three-year sentence.

At Grant’s request, Benson ordered Mathieu to report to the Kennebec County jail July 14 to begin serving the sentence.

Mitchell said bank account records showed the Mathieu family consistently took trips to New Hampshire Motor Speedway and had a comfortable lifestyle, including several trips to Orlando, Florida.

Mitchell said that in April 2013, Mathieu posted photos on Facebook of herself and her husband on a private, ocean-view balcony on their seven-day Caribbean cruise.

Grant told the judge that Mathieu had been the victim of a serious crime when she was 13 and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result. He noted that her car was repossessed and her mortgage foreclosed in 2008. He said she had other health problems as well, including diabetes and lupus, and would need time to work with jail administration to make sure her medications could be continued there.

The indictment says the theft by deception occurred from April 2008 to March 2014 and involved money from the state Department of Health and Human Services in the form of benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program, the Emergency Assistance Program and MaineCare.

Benson ordered Mathieu to pay $41,994.41 restitution to the state.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams