In the United States, a Long Island criminal defendant tried faking his death. He did this to avoid a jail sentence. He made his lawyer submit a phony death certificate. The spelling mistake made it a dead giveaway for a fraudster.
Robert Berger, 25, of Huntington, New York, now faces up to four years in prison if convicted in the alleged scheme. That’s excluding the pending sentences for earlier guilty. He was pleas to charges of possession of a stolen Lexus and attempted grand larceny of a truck — the punishment he was looking to avoid.
Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said:
“It will never cease to amaze me the lengths some people will go to avoid being held accountable on criminal charges.”
Arraigned by video on Tuesday due to the coronavirus pandemic, Berger pleaded not guilty to a single count of offering a false instrument for filing. A judge set bail at $1 but ordered Berger back to jail because of his underlying cases. His next court date is scheduled for July 29.
The lawyer who submitted the suspicious death certificate claimed he’d been used as a pawn and had nothing to do with the alleged shenanigans.
He was scheduled to be sentenced to a year in jail last October on the theft-related charges. Berger fled the state while taking steps to convince his then-lawyer, prosecutors and the judge that he had killed himself. According to the prosecutors, he allegedly used his fiance to pass along a bogus death certificate.
At first glance, Berger’s purported death certificate looked like an official document but there was one big problem. The registry was spelled “Regsitry,” prosecutors said. The inconsistent font type and size also raised suspicions.
The real New Jersey Department of Health, Vital Statistics and Registry confirmed that Robert Berger death certificate was a fake, prosecutors said.
Berger was alive, but not entirely well. He is arrested in suburban Philadelphia on various charges. Including a false identity to law enforcement and stole from a Catholic college. He was sentenced in January to up to a year in jail, according to Pennsylvania court records.
