NEW YORK (AP) — A man who dressed up as his mother in a bizarre real estate fraud that involved doctoring her death certificate and cashing her Social Security checks for six years after she died was sentenced Monday to more than 13 years behind bars.
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Thomas Parkin was convicted May 3 on charges including grand larceny and mortgage fraud. He was sentenced Monday to 13 2/3 to 41 years in prison. Prosecutors said the scheme lasted six years and involved Parkin wearing a blond wig, dress and oversized sunglasses.
The 51-year-old Parkin said at sentencing that he never hurt anyone or used stolen funds for personal gain or injury.
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When his mother, Irene Prusik, died in 2003 at age 73, he began impersonating her to cash her Social Security checks and keep her $2.2 million brownstone in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope, prosecutors said. The house had been deeded to Thomas Parkin, but he couldn’t make mortgage payments and the house was later sold at a foreclosure auction, prosecutors said.
Parkin and a co-defendant later sued the new owner under Prusik’s name, claiming real estate fraud and saying the auction was invalid in part because she was still alive, prosecutors said.
To maintain the ruse, Parkin doctored his mother’s death certificate and went to the Department of Motor Vehicles dressed as her in a blond wig, dress and oversized sunglasses so he could get a renewed license, prosecutors said. He also cashed Social Security checks for six years, totaling about $44,000, they said.
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