New York Man Charged with Impersonating Dead Mother (326 hits)
NEW YORK—Irene Prusik has been dead for six years. But in April, someone showed up at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Brooklyn to renew her driver's license. The explanation given by prosecutors rivals the Hitchcock classic "Psycho": It was her son, in drag. Thomas Parkin, 49, was charged Wednesday in the bizarre plot to impersonate his deceased mother so he could collect $117,000 in government benefits. He and the man accused of being his accomplice, Mhilton Rimolo, pleaded not guilty to grand larceny, criminal impersonation and other charges.
Both men were ordered held on $1 million bail. Their lawyers did not immediately respond to phone messages left on Wednesday. District Attorney Charles Hynes said the scam was "unparalleled in its scope and brazenness." Authorities claim that following his arrest, Parkin told them that because he held Prusik when she breathed her last breath, "I am my mother." Parkin, who lived with his mother, was accused of hatching the scheme after she passed away in 2003 at age 73. He managed to conceal the death by falsifying her death certificate, then collected $52,000 from her $700-a-month Social Security checks over the next six years, prosecutors said.
