Jan 9, 2008 2:28 am US/Eastern
'Weekend At Bernie's' Scam Stuns NYC Cops
Two 65-Year-Olds Try To Use Dead Friend To Make Cash
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Police say two senior citizens were in need of cash so they put their deceased friend in an office chair and tried to pass him off as being alive to collect his $355 social security check.
CBS
There are few crimes that manage to surprise police, but this is one of them.
It was like something out of a bad movie. Two men are accused of pretending their dead friend was alive in order to get his money.
To many, $355 may not seem like much, but to two 65-year-old friends it was enough motivation to put their dead friend in a chair and wheel him down to the Pay-O-Matic in Hell's Kitchen to cash his social security check.
The incident brings back memories of the 1989 cult comedy hit "Weekend at Bernie's." In that film, two relative losers, played Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy, cart their dead boss around after he was killed by a hitman and try to pass him off as alive.
Regardless of the two reitrement-age friend's inspiration for doing what they are accused of, witnesses say they could have used some Hollywood help in the makeup department.
"He was sitting in the chair with his head in the back of the chair," witness Victor Rodriguez said. "From where I was looking he appeared to be dead."
Men wheeling around a dead man also caught the attention of a plainclothes police officer who was inside eating lunch next-door.
The officer was the one who called police just as David Dalaia and James O'Hare were about to wheel in the deceased, Virgilio Cintron, inside. They had to bring the man inside because without seeing him, the cashier was not going to cash the check.
Neighbors of the deceased Cintron and his roommate O'Hare say the two men were on the eccentric side and kept to themselves.
"It wouldn't surprise me that much," one neighbor said.
Added Marta Reman: "One said hi, the other really kept to himself. It seemed like he really didn't … well, he looked physically ill or something."
Cintron was taken to a nearby hospital and declared dead, most likely from natural causes. His two "friends," O'Hare and Dalaia, are now in police custody.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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