In the world of supersmart criminals that somehow manage to get caught almost immediately, there is a category of people who are pretending to be something they’re not.
(NOTE: All of these stories are real news, as far as I can tell. They’re fake in that the people involved are all faking something.)
Our first story today involves a 50-year-old man in Spain who would go out to restaurants, and then, when the bill came, he would pretend to have a heart attack.
Now this really seems like a normal Dad Joke. But he did it at over 20 restaurants, though that’s also typical of a Dad Joke. In actuality, though, he was doing it to get out of paying the bill. He would go all out – he’d collapse on the floor… and then what? Wouldn’t the EMTs take him to the hospital? And then they’d say, “Your heart is fine,” and then hand him a bill? What then? Does he fake another heart attack?
Also, it’s only a dad joke if you’re with your kids, which clearly he wasn’t. His kids wouldn’t have kept up the ruse, as far as all of them acting appropriately concerned when it’s the 20th time he’s doing this. It would be more like, “Dad’s doing his thing again.” Probably they all stopped going with him to restaurants. And he said, “Eh. All teenagers are embarrassed of their parents. This is normal.”
Now I have to admit – with the price of food these days, I wouldn’t automatically assume that this heart attack thing was a scam. But at the most recent restaurant he tried this at, the bill came out to $36.80. So the restaurant didn’t buy it. Instead of calling EMT, they called the cops, who showed up and pulled out a picture of him faking a heart attack in a previous establishment.
He has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever at his sentencing.
Our next story involves a couple in Florida who awoke one morning to find that someone had thrown a brick through the window of their baby’s bedroom. Also – and this is less concerning – someone had left a book on their front porch.
So the cops started looking for a neighbor that had a security camera and they found a home down the road with an open front door, so they spoke to the homeowner – 37-year-old Daniel Robert Dinkins – and said they were investigating the brick, and he said, “Oh, that may have been me.”
May have been. This is all alleged. We don’t know anything for sure.
He said he had gone swimming in their backyard, left the book there because he wanted to share it, and he threw the brick because he was a time traveler who wanted to save the occupants of the home from a future event. Obviously.
Wait, what? How would that save the occupants? Daniel declined to explain, in fear that if we know too much, it might affect our bechirah. Who knows why time travelers do the things that they do?
Wait, how do we know he’s 37?
When police questioned him further, Daniel did reveal that:
- He was specifically trying to save the baby from “something way in the future when the child is much older,” and
- He didn’t know the baby was in the bedroom.
The thing is that if he was successful -- if we never hear about this baby again – that means he was telling the truth.
Wait; maybe he’s the baby!
I’m sure he was telling the truth. I’m not even sure why I put this in a criminal article, other than I guess he swam in their pool first. He traveled back in time, threw a brick, but also bought a home.
Or maybe he said it “may have been me,” because he hasn’t done it yet.
And speaking of people in Florida who haven’t actually done anything wrong, take Derlyn Roberts, the woman who pretended to be a sign-language interpreter for the Tampa police despite not really knowing that much sign language.
Her job was to stand near the police chief at press conferences and sign what he was saying for the benefit of deaf people watching the news without subtitles. Her strategy was to just frantically make hand motions and hope that deaf people wouldn’t call in.
It took her exactly one press conference until she got caught.
They were announcing the arrest of a serial killer, but she only knew the sign for the other type of cereal.
An actual interpreter, Wendy Rossi, later interpreted what she’d said. One sentence was, “Kill 55 million [unintelligible] please [unintelligible] arrest killed [unintelligible] work school work four one kill [unintelligible] three old two four now I will have ask want [unintelligible] about two times night.”
Basically, she was doing what you or I would do in that position, meaning she was signing mostly numbers. So I can picture her scrambling to keep changing signs as fast as she could and putting up 4 fingers, then 1, then the sign for kill, which I assume is the one finger across the throat?
Rossi said that the deaf community was being left out of the important information that everyone else was getting, but I mean they got this instead, so there is some value in entertainment.
She did also have a criminal record before the police had hired her to help with their conference about arresting a criminal. She’d had previous convictions for burglary and a 5-year-sentence for fraud. So she probably told them she had a background with law enforcement. But I mean it’s hard for an ex-con to find a job, so why not with the police? If they’ll have you.
But you never know who could be a criminal. Or what.
Take the story from October titled, “Mannequin Arrested After Warsaw Shop Burglary.”
Wait, is this an actual mannequin or a person pretending to be a mannequin? How did police know which one to arrest? Were they like, “Arrest all the mannequins and we’ll sort it out later”?
Apparently, this man had stood in the window of a store and pretended to be a mannequin until the mall closed. Then he stole some jewelry.
“How did the store owners miss that?” you’re wondering. Well, you don’t always make eye contact with all the mannequins when you’re locking up. They didn’t realize what he’d done until they checked the security footage afterward.
I’ve included a picture. Eagle-eyed readers might be able to spot the guy.
HINT: He’s the only one with a face.
He’s also the only one wearing stretched-out old clothes and holding a shopping bag. From a different store.
Anyway, in case you’re wondering why some stores have mannequins with no heads, it’s so people don’t pose as them.
Though people can definitely pose as recently deceased. Our final story today involves 25-year-old Robert Berger of Long Island, who was charged with possession of stolen property and had pleaded guilty. But on the day of his sentencing, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, his lawyer showed up and handed the court a copy of Berger’s death certificate.
And yes, the timing of the death was very suspicious. But what really got the court’s attention was that there was a typo on the certificate.
Sure, it looked pretty much like a real certificate, issued by the New Jersey Department of Health, Office of Vital Statistics and Regsitry. Except that they’d spelled it regsitry. This isn’t a typo in Berger’s specific information – it was in the logo itself, which meant that if it was real, the regsitry gave out thousands of these and no one caught it.
It was a dead giveaway. (Sorry.)
So the court called New Jersey, and confirmed that they indeed did know how to spell registry over there, so the document was forged.
See, this is why I teach my students to proofread their work – in case they want to commit fraud some day in a believable way. If you’re going to fake your own death, rachmanah litzlan, maybe take the time to proofread your death certificate.
So where was Berger?
He was off getting arrested in Pennsylvania for stealing from a college and providing a false identity to law enforcement.
But of course he provided them with a false identity. His real identity was otherwise occupied.
Anyway, he was going to be sentenced to a year, but now he’s looking at 5.
He pleaded not guilty.
He has an opportunity to do the funniest thing ever at his sentencing.
So this is where we stand, as a society? What does this mean for our future? Only Hashem knows. And the time-traveler guy.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.