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Journalism of Courage
Cyril Kendall, father of 12, reported his youngest child dead — a brown-eyed young man in a blue suit, last seen on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Gerard Rinaldi reported the death of his wife, last seen working in the Windows of the World restaurant in the North Tower. Ricardo Frutos listed three dead relatives, killed as they toured the 42nd floor of the WTC straight off a flight from France.
These were deeply disturbing tales — not for the people who reported them, but for police detectives who exposed them as frauds. ‘‘Basically, these people were vultures,’’ said New York City Police Sgt. Daniel Heinz, whose Special Frauds Squad has spent more than a year dismantling the edifice of lies built by people seeking to profit from the worst terrorist attack on US soil.
Eighteen months after the towers collapsed, the squad’s nine detectives are still investigating suspicious claims of dead loved ones who, all too often, are either very much alive or never existed at all. Kendall collected $190,867, Rinaldi collected $13,500 and Frutos received $47,000 before they were charged with filing false death claims for imaginary victims or, in Rinaldi’s case, for his unsuspecting estranged wife. For his nonexistent son ‘‘Wilfred,’’ Kendall allegedly provided a photo of himself as a young man.
After entering guilty pleas, Rinaldi was sentenced to six months in jail, and Frutos got one to three years. Kendall pleaded not guilty and is free on bail awaiting a court hearing. The frauds have a special resonance for Heinz and other detectives, all of whom lost colleagues or loved ones on Sept. 11. The squad spent the first weeks after the disaster collecting and identifying body parts at the city morgue, making wrenching phone calls to notify relatives of confirmed victims. ‘‘This is an unbelievable responsibility to the people who perished,’’ Heinz said inside his bunker-like office in East Harlem.
The squad has arrested 38 people who have been charged with filing false death claims. And 158 death reports have been investigated, with about three dozen cases still open and fresh cases still trickling in. The investigations have helped whittle down what the detectives call ‘‘The List,’’ the roster of World Trade Center dead. The tally, which climbed past 6,000 in the first frantic days after the attacks, dropped to 2,801 by the first-year anniversary. The List stood at 2,792 last week, with Heinz predicting that it will continue to contract with each new fraud conviction.
Officials at charities and relief organisations know that every disaster brings out hustlers, but the persistence and audacity of the WTC frauds has still been disillusioning.
Suspicious Red Cross workers have helped authorities arrest and charge a long list of people who received emergency cash after filing false loss claims. Walter Rhoden of Brooklyn, for instance, received $1,730 to compensate him for the downtown job he claimed to have lost because of the trade center collapse. In fact, police said, Rhoden had been fired from his law firm a week before the attacks. He has pleaded guilty to forgery and other charges. The Red Cross says it has no estimate of its total Sept. 11 fraud losses, but Goldburg said they represent a tiny fraction of the $741 million the agency has paid to victims of the disaster. ‘‘Considering the amount of money involved, I think the level of fraud has been remarkably low,’’ said Barbara Thompson, spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which has prosecuted almost 400 Sept. 11 fraud cases.
The magnitude of the World Trade Center collapse provided a unique opportunity for fraud. Because the remains of many victims were unlikely to be recovered or identified, authorities sped up the process of issuing death certificates — cutting waiting time from several years to a matter or days or weeks. Predictably, insurance companies and charities were peppered with falsified documents and phony affidavits. Many people walked away with thousands of dollars after filing death claims for nonexistent loved ones, at least until investigators had time later to re-examine their cases. Most insurance companies decided ‘‘to pay now and ask questions later,’’ said James Quiggle of the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. The industry has processed an estimated $5 million to $10 million in phony death claims, Quiggle said. In most cases, it did not take long for investigators to spot holes in the facades constructed by claimants.
Charities also are attempting to recover funds. In some cases, people had opportunity smack them in the faces, and they apparently could not resist. More than 100 members of the Municipal Credit Union in New York City have been charged with stealing at least $7,500 each from the union after its banking system was disabled by the trade center collapse. Concerned that members would need emergency cash, the union decided to keep the system operating despite its inability to monitor account balances. Police say members withdrew thousands of dollars more than their accounts actually held.
(LA Times-Washington Post)
