We all know that Costa Rica is a nice place to visit, but this sounds just a tad bit extreme: 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. What in the hell??? What was this broad thinking???? It’s obvious that this was gonna turn out bad. SMH. Source
Originally posted here:
The Epitome Of A Bad Mother: Woman Fakes Her Daughter’s Death So She Can Go On Vacation To Costa Rica
