NEW YORK - Two men wheeled a dead man through the streets in an office chair to a check-cashing store Tuesday and tried to cash his Social Security check before being arrested on fraud charges, police said.
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's body was taken to a hospital morgue. The medical examiner's office told police it appeared Cintron, 66, had died of natural causes within the previous 24 hours, Browne said.
"He was deceased in the apartment when he was removed by these two," Browne said.
Dalaia and O'Hare, both 65, were being held by police and faced check fraud charges, Browne said.
A call to a telephone number listed for Cintron at the apartment he shared with O'Hare went unanswered Tuesday evening. Police said they didn't have an address for Dalaia or attorney information for him or O'Hare.
Criminal geniuses at work !
Or maybe he's really just spending a year dead for tax reasons.
Where they trying to prove he was still alive by... proving he was dead...?
I... what? No, I can't, I get nosebleeds when I try to think of any sort of reasoning behind these sorts of actions.
Gaian Paradigm: Because not all fantasy has to be childish crap. Ephemeral Pie: Because not all role-playing has to be shallow. My art: Because not all DA users are talentless emo twits. "Phant, quit abusing the He-Wench before he turns you into a caged bitch at a Ren Fair and lets the tourists toss half munched turkey legs at your backside." -Mr. Coffee
I'm guessing the reasoning here went something like:
"Hey wake Virg up and tell him to cash his check already, I just ran into the super and he's mad as hell that we're late with the rent again."
"Yeah, Virg said he wasn't feeling.. Aw fuck man, I think he's dead!"
Both men completely panic and commence irrational hijinks...
"Do I really look like a guy with a plan? Y'know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it! Y'know, I just do things..." --The Joker
Raw Shark wrote:I'm guessing the reasoning here went something like:
"Hey wake Virg up and tell him to cash his check already, I just ran into the super and he's mad as hell that we're late with the rent again."
"Yeah, Virg said he wasn't feeling.. Aw fuck man, I think he's dead!"
Both men completely panic and commence irrational hijinks...
Panic (perhaps the rent or utilities were way overdue or something, and they needed 'Virg's' share to pay up), can make otherwise normal people react stupidly.
Either that, or they were just sociopaths who didn't care that he was dead and just wanted the cash.
But in the end, stupid is as stupid does.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
