NYC school employee faked daughter's death

By Hum
in Real World News

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Grand Master

Hum

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A city school employee scammed a week off for a Costa Rica vacation by staging the mother of all hoaxes ? convincing her bosses she couldn?t work because her daughter had died.

Joan Barnett, a parent coordinator at the Manhattan High School of Hospitality Management, was so determined to make the spring break jaunt that she:

* Had one of her daughters call the school to say that her sister had suffered a heart attack in Costa Rica.

* Had another daughter call the school later that day to say that the sister had died and that about a dozen relatives, including Barnett, were traveling to the country for a funeral.

* Faxed a forged death certificate of her daughter ?Xinia Daley Herman? to school as proof of the death. The document is required if a city school employee asks for bereavement days.

Thanks to the scam, Barnett, 58, was able to spend 21/2 weeks in March 2010 ? including her school-sanctioned spring break ? in the tropical paradise, city investigators said.

But the fun in the sun didn?t last long.

A school official quickly grew suspicious of the death certificate because it contained ?slightly different fonts which were not aligned properly,? according to a report by special schools investigator Richard Condon.

Costa Rican government officials later confirmed to a city investigator that the certificate was a fake, noting the document had identification numbers that actually corresponded to a man and had been issued in 2005.

Costa Rican officials also told the investigator it ?does not issue death certificates five years prior to a person?s date of death,? according to court records.

Investigators also were able to determine that Barnett booked the tickets for her vacation more than three weeks before she left ? long before she claimed her daughter croaked.

When confronted with the forgery evidence, Barnett insisted the death certificate was real and that her daughter ?died of a heart condition,? investigators said.

Barnett even submitted another death certificate ? this time with the month and year changed to March 2010, according to court records.

The morbid plot cost Barnett her $37,000-a-year job at the school. She also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor over the forgery in Manhattan Criminal Court this fall, records show.

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monkey13

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Barnett even submitted another death certificate ? this time with the month and year changed to March 2010, according to court records.

This is the icing on the stupid cake.

Official: We think your death certificate is suspicious and possibly not genuine.

Stupid Woman: Try this one instead.

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