Suspected Melbourne dealer faces charges

BY J.D.GALLOP • FLORIDA TODAY • June 18, 2009

A deal to die for: Indianapolis cemetery holds `buy 1, get 1 free' sale on select grave sites

Associated Press

Last update: June 18, 2009 - 2:24 PM

Signs along the street outside the cemetery also advertise that no one with bad credit will be turned down.

British WWI veteran becomes world's oldest man

AP – Britain's oldest man, and oldest

surviving First World War veteran

Henry Allingham, celebrates his 113th …

http://clipsyndicate.com/publish/video/991817?wpid=5728

Jeff City Attorney found asleep in neighbor's trash can

 

Shayla Reaves

Single-mother digital pirate Jammie Thomas-Rasset must pay $80,000 per song

Jammie Thomas-Rasset

Thieves Leave Real Names At Store Before Heist

Reporting
Terry Jessup

LONE TREE, Colo. (CBS4) ?

 

the thieves left their Real names, phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses on a card they filled out before they filled their basket.

CBS

  The crime can be reviewed and critiqued since it was all captured on the store's security cameras.

CBS

Man beaten, robbed for bologna sandwich in Oklahoma City

Roger Hamilton told police he was sitting on a bus station bench, preparing to put mayonnaise on his bologna and cheese when a man wearing headphones began staring at him. ,   

Hamilton, 24, told police he asked the man if he could help him, but before he knew it, the man punched him in the mouth and snatched his sandwich.

When police arrived at the Hudson Street bus station Wednesday, they found Hamilton with a swollen lip and his face covered in blood.

Hamilton told police he did not know the man or why he assaulted him and stole his sandwich. He described him as a black man who appeared to be in his 30s.

The police report values the sandwich at 76 cents.

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://feeds.newsok.tv/services/player/bcpid4659235001?bctid=26765375001

Tuesday, Jun. 16, 2009

Man nabbed after trying to rob woman and following her - to Madison County sheriff's 

Madison County Sheriff's Capt. Brad Wells said the suspect followed the woman from a gas station near Illinois 143 and Interstate 55 Monday evening and tried to rob her while she was in her vehicle.

The woman, who had her three small children in the vehicle with her when it happened, called 911. The woman, being directed by a dispatcher, drove toward the Madison County Sheriff's Department in Edwardsville. The suspect actually followed her until he realized where she was arriving.

The suspect, 26-year-old Carleous Clay Jr. of West Olive, Mich., was captured shortly afterward. Prosecutors charged him Tuesday with attempted armed robbery and possession of a stolen vehicle.

Wells gave the following account:

The victim was getting gas when she noticed a man drive into the gas station in a black Chevrolet Impala. The man entered the gas station and came outside. The woman left the gas station and headed east on Illinois 143. She saw the man driving behind her.

The woman felt uneasy about the situation and turned into a subdivision, where she went down a cul-de-sac. She stopped her vehicle in the 100 block of Emerald Hills. The man pulled alongside her and asked for directions to the interstate.

The woman knew something was fishy because the man had just left the interstate area. Clay asked the woman for something on which he could write. Clay then showed a black handgun and told the victim not to move, or he would shoot.

The victim fled, driving across a vacant lot. She called 911.

Sheriff's Lt. Gary Burns directed dispatcher Tim Fulcher to have the woman drive toward the sheriff's office. While the woman was on the 911 call, she said the suspect was following her.

"The suspect was running red lights to keep pace with the victim," Wells said.

Deputies were dispatched to try to intercept the suspect. As the woman arrived at the sheriff's office, the suspect turned around in a bank parking lot across the street.

The suspect headed east on Illinois 143 and was stopped near Pin Oak Road in Edwardsville by Deputy Scott Gurley. Clay was taken into custody there, but no gun was found in his vehicle.

Gurley's police dog, however, found the gun near Kiowa Street in Edwardsville. The weapon turned out to be an Airsoft-type gun that resembles a real gun.

During the 911 call, which lasted 7 minutes and 38 seconds, the dispatcher more than once had to calm the woman.

"The whole thing was really handled well, not only by the telecommunicator, but the victim herself," Wells said. "She kept her composure, she was able to tell the telecommunicator where she was at."

The vehicle Clay was driving had been reported stolen Monday in Michigan. He also was wanted for a parole violation in Michigan. Clay has served prison time for robbery charges.

Clay was being held Tuesday in the Madison County Jail with bail set at $100,000 by Circuit Judge Charles Romani Jr

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://www.bnd.com/breaking_news/story/809885.html

ATMs on Staten Island rigged for identity theft; bandits steal $500G

BY Alison Gendar
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF

Monday, May 11th 2009, 4:00 AM

One suspected member of the Staten Island ATM-rigging crew is caught on videotape.

The scam used a 'skimmer' to slyly acquire card information from unsuspecting bank customers.

With their intricate scheme, the men are believed to have stolen more than $500,000.

A band of brazen thieves ripped off hundreds of New Yorkers by rigging ATMs to steal account and password information from bank customers.

They used the pilfered info to swipe half a million dollars from their victims' bank accounts - the latest twist in increasingly aggressive identity-theft scams, police said.

"This crew is sophisticated," said Deputy Inspector Gregory Antonsen, head of the NYPD's special investigations division. "And they are coming up with new ways to steal your identity every day."

The scam is part of a chronic assault on people's identity.

From pickpockets hoping to hit pay dirt with a stolen purse to service workers in hotels, hospitals and restaurants selling confidential information, personal data is a hot commodity and under constant threat.

The NYPD is hunting the rigged-ATM crew after the havoc they created stealing from Sovereign Bank customers.

They sauntered into Staten Island branches on Henderson Ave. and Amboy Road and installed devices on the bank's ATM machines, police said.

The first - a skimmer - went over the slot where customers insert their ATM cards. The skimmer reads, and stores, the personal information kept in the magnetic strip on the back of the bank card.

The second gizmo was a tiny camera hidden in the lighted signs over the ATM.

The pinhole camera lens pointed directly onto the ATM keypad and filmed victims typing in their supposedly secret PIN codes.

The crew stole more than $500,000 from more than 250 victims - money the bank is now reimbursing.

"They would download the information collected by the skimmer and synchronize it with the video, and they would have your bank accounts and your PIN number, and [start] grabbing all they can," Antonsen said.

The thieves would then create their own phony ATM cards and use their victim's PIN to dip into accounts, often going to other banks, like Citibank, to make the withdrawals.

Robert Schwartz said he was checking his accounts online last month when he noticed two suspicious withdrawals - one for $600, plus a $3 ATM charge, and a second, a few minutes later, for $403.

"They took out the maximum for the day. I was just lucky I noticed it before they hit me for another $1,000," said Schwartz, 44, a UPS driver.

Schwartz called the the bank, which put an immediate hold on his account, thwarting a third attempted withdrawal. The bank refunded his loss.

Pictures of three crew members were captured by the banks' surveillance cameras as the thieves installed the devices or withdrew money, said Lt. Ruperto Aguilar, head of the NYPD's identity theft squad.

Skimmers, now illegal, have turned up on bank ATM machines and gas pumps and in the pockets of crooked waiters at high-end restaurants, police said.

"I always keep my eyes open, but they still got through to my account," Schwartz said. "I don't know how the hell they did it, but they did."

                 FOLLOW-UP TO STORY POSTED ON JUNE 17, 2009--

                              "Man Dressed Up as Dead Mom to 
                               Collect Benefits"

Mother of all scams just gets weirder: Thomas Prusik Parkin kept casket in his living room

William Sherman
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, June 18th 2009, 4:59 AM

Tina Zimmer

Thomas Prusik Parkin, who is accused of impersonating his dead mother, Irene Pusik, stands beside her coffin during wake at Brooklyn funeral home in 2003.

Adams for News

The gravestone of Irene Prusik, mother of alleged fraudster Thomas Prusik Parkin.

Adams for News

Thomas Prusik Parkin and Mhilton Rimolo (below) are escorted to the Brooklyn Supreme Court by detectives.

Adams for News

A Brooklyn man accused of dressing as his dead mother to collect $1 million in benefits and loans kept a casket in his living room, investigators said.

City marshals made the discovery when they showed up to evict Thomas Prusik Parkin and his brother from a Park brownstone at the center of the alleged scam.

It's unclear why Parkin had the coffin - another bizarre detail in a case so twisted it shocked probers from the Brooklyn district attorney's office.

"Mark Twain said truth is stranger than fiction, and this is a great example of that," Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said yesterday as Parkin was indicted.

He was hit with 47 counts of grand larceny, forgery and conspiracy. His alleged accomplice, Mhilton Rimolo, also was indicted.

They face up to 25 years in prison if they're convicted. After pleading guilty, they were ordered held in lieu of $1 million bail.

Parkin, 49, allegedly began posing as his mother, Irene Prusik, after she died in 2003.

He filed a blizzard of bogus documents with government agencies, collecting $62,000 in Social Security payments and $65,000 in state rent subsidies, officials said.

Rimolo, 47, is accused of posing as Irene Prusik's nephew and escorting Parkin - who walked with a cane and wore a wig, makeup, nail polish and long, red dresses.

"He said he's not Norman Bates," Hynes said, referring to the twisted character from the movie "Psycho" who dons his dead mother's clothing.

"This guy is not stupid; this guy is very smart. His schemes were brilliant."

Bureaucrats, banks, lawyers, mortgage brokers and title company representatives were all fooled by the cross-dressing con, prosecutors said.

Just two months ago, Parkin allegedly posed as his mother to get a $938,250 mortgage on a $2.2 million Park Slope brownstone - despite the fact it was owned by someone else who bought it in foreclosure in 2003.

Parkin and his family lived in the home for decades and stayed after it was sold.

Until the marshals showed up in March, he managed to avoid eviction and paying rent with a flurry of legal actions in which he posed as his mother and even invented a son and a nephew, officials said.

RELATED STORIES:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/18/2009-06-18_even_judge_struggled_to_follow_accused_dragnuts_phantoms.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/17/2009-06-17_psycho_son_.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/17/2009-06-17_cops_brooklyn_man_impersonates_dead_mother.html

Staten Island bandit dooms gang by leaving business card at crime scene

BY Thomas Zambito
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, June 17th 2009, 4:00 AM

Schwartz for News

Anthony Kalika of Staten Island, alleged member of burglary ring, is taken by law officials to Brooklyn court.

A brazen gang of New York bandits was smart enough to pull off a multistate spree, but so dumb they left a real business card at one crime scene.

The card bearing the name of Anthony Kalika, 19, of Staten Island, listed his proficiency at trades like electrical wiring and plumbing, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

"You Name It, I Can Do It," read the card, which was found in a car abandoned at the scene of one burglary.

Nine members of the ring from Brooklyn and Staten Island, were charged in the series of middle-of-the-night break-ins at chain stores such as Best Buy and Petco in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Prosecutors say the gang also posed as cops during several gunpoint robberies.

On Nov. 15, 2008, five gang members kidnapped a Staten Island pot dealer at gunpoint from the Pleasant Plains train station for his stash of drugs and money, prosecutors say.

The victim was handcuffed and driven to a Staten Island beach, where he was forced to his knees while one gang member clicked a round off behind his head, prosecutors say.

Kalika was a key player in an attack that gave "the drug dealer the impression he was about to be executed," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Skinner.

"He [Kalika] not only participated in it, but he's the one who put the handcuffs on the victim," Skinner said.

State criminal charges were dropped by the Staten Island district attorney when the victim in the staged execution recanted his identification of the suspects, Skinner said.

Skinner said the feds bolstered the case with recent wiretap evidence and statements from co-conspirators that linked gang members to the kidnapping.

The nine arrested yesterday were charged with crimes that include burglary, extortion, credit card theft, marijuana trafficking and identity theft.

The first break-in occurred in January on Staten Island, followed by one in suburban Greenburgh a month later.

They allegedly moved on to a store in Copley, Ohio, in March and one in Scranton, Pa., in April.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/17/2009-06-17_life_of_crime_not_in_cards.html#ixzz0Ijk5UrJx&C

LINK TO VIDEO OF PARKIN IMPERSONATING DEAD MOTHER:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06172009/news/regionalnews/brooklyn/mom_impersonator_busted_in_social_securi_174722.htm

Original Story

MOM IMPERSONATOR BUSTED IN SOCIAL SECURITY AND MORTGAGE SCAM

ADAM NICHOLS

New York Post

Last updated: 1:26 pm
June 17, 2009
Posted: 12:08 pm
June 17, 2009

Move over, Norman Bates.

A Brooklyn psycho played dress-up as part of an elaborate scam, accused of wearing a wig and nail polish to impersonate his dead mother in order to collect thousands in Social Security benefits and rent subsidies.

Over the course of six years, Thomas Prusik-Parkin, 49, fooled several government agencies using heavy makeup and a fake ID, the Brooklyn DA's office announced this morning at a news conference.

The hoax was even captured on surveillance camera and used as part of the DA's case against Prusik-Parkin, said Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes.

He was arrested Monday and will be arraigned today on grand larceny, forgery and conspiracy charges.

Hynes called the crime "unparralleled in its scope and brazeness."

His mother, Irene Prusik, who lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, died in 2003 at age 73.

The DA said a second man, identified as Mhilton Rimolo, is accused of pretending to be Prusik's nephew during visits to collect government checks.

The 47-year-old man was also caught on surveillance video walking alongside Prusik-Parkin dressed in drag.

Widow pulls pink pistol on handyman she believes was trying to steal her jewelry

RYAN MILLS
8:32 p.m., Tuesday, June 16, 2009

NAPLES — With her pacemaker and frail body, few would describe Christa Taft-Mueller as an intimidating woman.

But the 69-year-old widow is no pushover when she’s packing her pink-handled Walther P22 semi-automatic handgun. Just ask a local handyman.

On Monday afternoon, Taft-Mueller pulled the gun on a handyman who was supposed to be repairing the pocket door leading to her bedroom, but who she says she found arched over her jewelry box.

“My hands were shaking so much,” Taft-Mueller said in her German accent. “And the guy said, ‘Is that pistol loaded?’ I said, ‘Of course it is. It’s ready for you. It’s ready for you, honey.’”

The handyman, whose name is not being released by the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, said he was only looking for an outlet to plug in a tool. He was not charged with a crime because the Sheriff’s Office said nothing was missing from Taft-Mueller’s jewelry box.

“There was no evidence that a crime occurred,” Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Michelle Batten said.

Rob Gardner, vice president of Orlando-based Handyman Connection, said he trusts the handyman wasn’t attempting to steal anything. Gardner’s company has employed the handyman since 2006 without incident, he said.

“I think it was just an honest mistake on her part,” Gardner said.

Taft-Mueller couldn’t disagree more.

Since her husband died of cancer last September, Taft-Mueller has relied on hired handymen to fix things around her East Naples home on Moon Lake Drive. After the sliding door to her bedroom fell off the track recently, she called Handyman Connection, a company she’s hired maybe a half-dozen times before.

When the handyman arrived around 1 p.m. on Monday, Taft-Mueller said he went right to work on the door. She grew suspicious, however, when she said he closed the door and was alone in her bedroom for about five minutes.

Taft-Mueller said that when she opened the door to check on the handyman, he was bent over the jewelry box on top of her night stand. The handyman said it was all a mistake, and that he was only looking for an outlet to plug in a light inside her dark bedroom, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.

If that was the case, Taft-Mueller questioned why he didn’t use the outlet on the side wall next to the night stand, or one of the three outlets within a few feet of the door he was repairing.

“He said, ‘I’m looking for an outlet.’ I said, ‘In my jewelry box?’” Taft-Mueller said. “I started trembling and I got real scared that he was a thief.”

When the handyman went out to his truck, Taft-Mueller called the Sheriff’s Office and found her loaded pink pistol in her bedroom.

“It’s kind of like a lady’s gun,” Taft-Mueller said. “A guy wouldn’t want to own a gun that is pink. He would want something that’s blue and black and brown. Not a pink one. That would be sissy.”

When the handyman came back inside, she held him at gunpoint.

“I said, ‘You (expletive), you’re not going anyplace,’” Taft-Mueller said.

The Sheriff’s Office dispatcher told Taft-Mueller to put the gun down, and told both her and the handyman to go outside to wait for responding deputies. She was hospitalized briefly because her chest was tight and she was having a hard time breathing after the encounter.

“We’re not anticipating charges in this incident,” Batten said.

Gardner said this is the first time that anything like this has occurred to one of his franchise employees since he went into business in 2001. He said he wishes the best for Taft-Mueller, and is sorry for any confusion.

“I’m just happy our guy got out of there safely, to be honest,” Gardner said.

When told that the Sheriff’s Office didn’t expect to charge the handyman with a crime, Taft-Mueller said, “You’re kidding.” If she would have known that, she said, she would have handled things a bit differently.

“I would have shot him,” Taft-Mueller said. “I definitely would have shot him. Definitely

LINK TO VIDEO:

 http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/jun/16/widow-pulls-pink-pistol-handyman-she-believes-was-/

Safety tips for hiring a handyman:

* Decide what specifically needs to be done and make a detailed list.

* Make sure your handyman is licensed and insured.

* Ask detailed questions about their skills and experience.

* Get references from previous customers.

* Get a written estimate of their work.

* Get a contract for services they will perform, payment schedule and completion date.

* Contact your Better Business Bureau to verify their history of complaints.