Man Dressed Like His Dead Mother For Years To Receive Benefits, Convicted of Fraud

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.

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.

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.

Jurors deliberated for less than a day before finding him guilty. At trial, they were shown security footage of Parkin in drag in public, but his defense attorney said it could’ve been anyone.
As the property dispute dragged out, both
sides eventually contacted the district
attorney to accuse each other of fraud. By
the time investigators arranged a meeting
with the family, they had proof Prusik was
dead: a photo of her tombstone in a local
cemetery.
The investigators played along as Parkin
showed up for the interview “wearing a red
cardigan, lipstick, manicured nails and
breathing through an oxygen tank,”
prosecutors said.

A co-defendant, Mhilton Rimolo, 49, was
sentenced in October 2010 to three years in
prison after he was convicted of grand
larceny.