New York Man Fakes Death, Plan Unravels After Simple Typo

Well, he tried. A criminal defendant from Long Island had cooked up quite the plot to avoid jail time for a prior offense; convince everyone that you were dead. he may have gotten away with it too if not for one small thing. In this case, it was a simple typo.

ABC7 reports that the 25 year-old man had been sentenced in October 2019 for possession of a stolen Lexus and attempted grand larceny of a truck. Prosecutors say he wanted to avoid the one year jail sentence, so he left the state and tried to convince everyone he had committed suicide. Officials say he even had fake death certificate to try to prove it.

What happened? Prosecutors say that on the certificate, that was supposed to look like it came from the New Jersey Department of Health, Vital Statistics and Registry, the word registry was spelled "Regsitry". Oops.

ABC reports that the man had also been arrested outside Philadelphia on allegations he provided a false identity to law enforcement and stole from a Catholic college. ABC says that the man was arraigned Tuesday. He pleaded not guilty to a single count of offering a false instrument for filing.

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