Man dresses as his dead mother to collect her benefits...for 6 years

Link

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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.

Yeah, you read that right. The DMV video footage (available at the link) is pretty damn disturbing.

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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.

Just as an aside, it seems like a lot of effort for a pretty measly payoff.

I will fucking lol if he gets stabbed in the prison shower.

Mafiosa wrote:

I will fucking lol if he gets stabbed in the prison shower.

Me too. That is so not nice and you should be ashamed!

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The investigators played along as Parkin showed up for the interview "wearing a red cardigan, lipstick, manicured nails and breathing through an oxygen tank," prosecutors said.

This guy really didn't want to get a job.

bleachedblackcat wrote:

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The investigators played along as Parkin showed up for the interview "wearing a red cardigan, lipstick, manicured nails and breathing through an oxygen tank," prosecutors said.

This guy really didn't want to get a job.

Is $700 (is that a week or a month?) enough to live on?

Lexin wrote:

Is $700 (is that a week or a month?) enough to live on?

Not very well.

It depends on if he was doing other things. Maybe he was collecting other benefits as well. Or had a side job. Then an extra $700 would just be a little 'bonus'.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Just as an aside, it seems like a lot of effort for a pretty measly payoff.

Just how often do you have to show up in person somewhere to be getting your benefits? Dressing up two or three times a year to get more than eight grand doesn't seem like a whole lot of effort to me.

Lexin wrote:

bleachedblackcat wrote:

Quote :

The investigators played along as Parkin showed up for the interview "wearing a red cardigan, lipstick, manicured nails and breathing through an oxygen tank," prosecutors said.

This guy really didn't want to get a job.

Is $700 (is that a week or a month?) enough to live on?

It says he also got $65,000 in rent subsidies.

Daaaaamn! It looks pretty damn convincing too.

a 40+ year-old-man still living with his mom?

on the other hand

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Authorities claim that following his arrest, Parkin told them that because he held Prusik when she breathed her last breath, "I am my mother."

makes me think there is something seriously wrong with this man.

Miraba wrote:

Lexin wrote:

bleachedblackcat wrote:

Quote :

The investigators played along as Parkin showed up for the interview "wearing a red cardigan, lipstick, manicured nails and breathing through an oxygen tank," prosecutors said.

This guy really didn't want to get a job.

Is $700 (is that a week or a month?) enough to live on?

It says he also got $65,000 in rent subsidies.

The rent subsidies would've netted him more money than the social security. I'm disabled and get less than $700 a month, and if I didn't have my sons living with me helping pay the utilities, I'd have trouble getting by, even considering that my house is paid off.

grmblfjx wrote:

Quote :

Just how often do you have to show up in person
somewhere to be getting your benefits? Dressing up two or three times a
year to get more than eight grand doesn't seem like a whole lot of
effort to me.

If you're retired and getting social security, you don't have to show up anywhere. There's a possibility, if he hadn't gone to renew her driver's license, he wouldn't have gotten caught.

Nowadays, most retirement and disability checks are deposited directly to your bank account. I do know some older people, who don't trust banks and insist on having the checks sent to them by mail, so that's likely why he was able to keep getting them and cashing them as long as he did.

Update: Man Blames Impersonator

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A man accused of dressing up as his dead mother to collect her Social Security and rent subsidies is blaming the crime on an impersonator.

Thomas Parkin tells the New York Post in a jailhouse interview that he wasn't the person captured on security cameras dressed in a wig and his mom's clothing.