In Chicago, The Dead May Vote…
…But in New York City, they cash checks. Two men have been arrested for wheeling the dead body of a roommate to a local check cashing store and trying to cash the dead man's Social Security check. Oh, and they used an office chair to do so.
David J. Dalaia and James O'Hare pushed Virgilio Cintron's body from the Manhattan apartment that O'Hare and Cintron shared to Pay-O-Matic, about a block away, spokesman Paul Browne said witnesses told police.
"The witnesses saw the two pushing the chair with Cintron flopping from side to side and the two individuals propping him up and keeping him from flopping from side to side," Browne said.
The men left Cintron's body outside the store, went inside and tried to cash his $355 check, Browne said. The store's clerk, who knew Cintron, asked the men where he was, and O'Hare told the clerk they would go and get him, Browne said.
A police detective who was having lunch at a restaurant next to the check-cashing store noticed a crowd forming around Cintron's body, and "it's immediately apparent to him that Cintron is dead," Browne said.
The detective called uniformed New York Police Department officers at a nearby precinct. Emergency medical technicians arrived as O'Hare and Dalaia were preparing to wheel Cintron's body into the check-cashing store, Browne said. Police arrested Dalaia and O'Hare there, he said.
Cintron had died of natural causes. This reads like something out of a Monty Python skit - or a National Lampoon Vacation movie.
Criminal Masterminds | Gaius Wednesday, 9 January , 2008
By feeblemind, Wednesday, 9 January , 2008 @ 9:41 am
Agree with your final comment Gaius. Or perhaps they look and sound like the McKenzie brothers and were trying to pass Cintron off as having passed out, eh?
By crosspatch, Wednesday, 9 January , 2008 @ 12:02 pm
Hoser!
By NortonPete, Wednesday, 9 January , 2008 @ 1:59 pm
Virgilio had a friend in O’Hare, he was going to cash the check and take his roomate out for a final round of drinks, you couldn’t ask for a better friend.
By martian, Wednesday, 9 January , 2008 @ 2:46 pm
They needed to cash his check so they could pay for gas for the trip to spend the Weekend at Bernie’s! They probably thought he and Bernie would get along well - the two of them having so much in common and all.