A 45-year-old man was placed on probation for five years yesterday and ordered to pay the state and city about $126,000 restitution for keeping his dead father's disability and retirement payments.

Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario declined to either give Clarence Carvalho Jr. a chance to have the criminal case dropped or a 10-year prison term sought by prosecutors.

Carvalho earlier decided not to challenge theft, money-laundering and forgery charges and pleaded no contest.

Carvalho's father Clarence Carvalho Sr., who worked for the city, died in 1998, but the defendant kept about $7,000 of his father's state retirement benefits and about $119,000 of his father's city disability payments that continued to be issued after the father's death.

The prosecution contended the son stole the money from checks from the city and the retirement fund because they never belonged to him.

Del Rosario also ordered that about $32,000 that the son is supposed to receive for his own disabilities from a city job will be applied to the $126,000 he owes, according to city Deputy Prosecutor Paul Mow.