Posted on 07/08/2004 5:01:21 AM PDT by CSM
CARMEL — It's been written that death is a career move.
But for William Arksey, it was simply a way to avoid arrest.
Arksey, 53, formerly of Danbury, Conn., pleaded guilty yesterday in Putnam County Court to second-degree forgery, a felony, after admitting he filed his own death certificate to avoid arrest for skipping out on a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge in 1997.
It was only after Arksey recently served time in the Pennsylvania prison system that Putnam County authorities learned that the report of his demise — specifically, his death certificate — was, in fact, greatly exaggerated.
Arksey, who then went by the name of William Peterson, was arrested by state police in July 1997 on a charge of driving while intoxicated. After he failed to show up in court, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Assistant District Attorney Mary Jane MacCrae said that Arksey filed the bogus death certificate at Southeast Town Hall on Sept. 10, 1997.
"He did it with the intent to have it filed with the town of Southeast to get a criminal charge dismissed," MacCrae said.
Information was not available on what was listed as the cause of death.
Judge Robert E. Miller, who accepted Arksey's plea, appeared taken aback by his actions.
"This is really a unique trick you tried to play," Miller said. "You were just planning to make yourself dead?"
"I was a different person then, no pun intended," Arksey answered. "That was like eight years ago."
MacCrae then explained how Arksey's fingerprints resulted in the truth catching up to him. Pennsylvania authorities made copies of the fingerprints and checked them with a national database. That's how Putnam officials learned that Arksey was alive.
"So had he not been arrested, he could have, excuse me, passed himself off as dead for the rest of his life?" the judge asked.
"Thank God for fingerprints," MacCrae replied.
Arksey, who was represented by Carmel attorney Timothy Curtiss, had initially entered a not-guilty plea but apparently had a change of heart that resulted in his guilty plea yesterday. Providing Arksey stays out of trouble between now and his Aug. 11 sentencing, he will receive a one-year sentence to be served at the Putnam County jail, Miller said.
Arksey, who is being held in the jail on $50,000 bail, was returned there after his court appearance.
Wierd story PING.
He was dead before he was alive. Oops!
see....the CLEVER thing for this attorney to do would be to kill his client, drag his body into the courtroom, say, "see....he IS dead...my client is NOT GUILTY", then collect his fee from the estate.
;)
The authorities claim the suspect they have in custody somehow manged to get his death certificate forged. Methinks they doth protest too much: a dead man cannot not confess.
If this fellow had been killed at the hands of another, could the perpetrator be charged with murder? After all, the victim was already 'dead'.
We all got a big chuckle out of that one.
Maybe he did die, but got better.
Makes sense to me.
I think what really alerted authorities to the fact that this guy was not dead was that he failed to show up to vote in Chicago.
Yeah. If I ever tried this I'd make sure to change my voter registration to Democrat, too. Then there would be no doubt.
LOL....and the guy is thinking, "note to self: next time, cover ALL bases"
What a great stunt. I wish I had thought of it first before I paid that parking ticket last week.
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