23 charged in 9-11 charity scam

NEW YORK - Twenty-three people have been charged with falsely claiming that a family member died in the Sept. 11 attacks so they could get relief funds from emergency and charitable agencies, prosecutors say. <br> <br> District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said 15 defendants who filed false death certificates received a total of $760,465 based on their bogus claims. He said the other eight were caught before they got any money. <br> <br> ``This is a classic case of honey attracting the bears,&#39;&#39; Morgenthau said Thursday. <br> <br> New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said the scammers were uncovered through inconsistent and false information included in death certificate applications and other records. <br> <br> Individual defendants received amounts ranging from $1,000 to $272,800 from the American Red Cross, Safe Horizon, the Social Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Morgenthau said. <br> <br> In one case, a 32-year-old man from Lansing, Mich., reported that his brother was killed while attending a business meeting at the trade center. Before authorities learned that there was no such brother, the man had received $272,800 in charitable aid. <br> <br> Thirteen suspects are from the New York metropolitan area. The others live in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, and China. <br> <br> The charges against them include grand larceny, insurance fraud, forgery, falsifying business records, and offering false instruments for filing. <br> <br> A Red Cross spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the agency is investigating up to 50 cases of fraud related to Sept. 11. The organization had to act quickly after the tragedy, he said. <br> <br> ``You are talking about dealing with grieving families ... so you just had to trust them,&#39;&#39; said the spokesman, Darren Irby. ``And we didn&#39;t want them to get bogged down in Red Cross bureaucracy.&#39;&#39;

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