23 Charged in Sept. 11 Charity Scam -- CooKoo's Nest

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Date Posted: 19:50:24 03/21/02 Thu
Author: Anonymous
Subject: 23 Charged in Sept. 11 Charity Scam

NEW YORK � Nearly two dozen people have been charged with trying to steal money mean't for the families of those killed in the World Trade Center attack.

The 23 defendants are accused of falsely claiming that a family member had died in the Sept. 11 terrorist assault so they could get relief funds from emergency and charitable agencies.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said 15 defendants who filed false death certificates received a total of $760,465, based on their bogus claims. He said the other eight were caught before they got any money.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said the scammers were uncovered through inconsistent and false information included in death certificate applications and other records.

Individual defendants received amounts ranging from $1,000 to $272,800 from the American Red Cross, Safe Horizon, the Social Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Morgenthau said.

In one case, a 32-year-old man from Lansing, Mich., reported that his brother was killed while attending a business meeting at the trade center. Before authorities learned that there was no such brother, the man had received $272,800 in charitable aid.

Thirteen suspects are from the New York metropolitan area. The others live in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and China.

The charges against them include grand larceny, insurance fraud, forgery, falsifying business records, and offering false instruments for filing.

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