NOT THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN THE DRAWER: If I Die Sudden
While on probation for a federal drug offense, Benjamin Brown, 36, was arrested on a handgun charge. Rather than face U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan at a probation revocation hearing, Brown set into motion an elaborate ruse, reports The Washington Post:
A day before the hearing, an unidentified acquaintance of Brown's showed up at the federal probation office with a death certificate from the D.C. Health Department attesting that Benjamin E. Brown Jr. had departed this mortal coil, a victim of a shooting that month. His probation officer brought the certificate to the Nov. 28 hearing. In light of the tragedy, all parties concerned, including the judge and prosecutor, agreed that the case against Brown should be closed. And so it was.
The gun case pending against him in D.C. Superior Court at the time was headed for the grave as well, until someone noticed that Brown's death certificate was missing the raised seal of the D.C. government, authorities said. …
Brown or someone helping him had copied and altered another person's certificate, listing Brown as the man who had met a violent and untimely end.
The criminal charges were reinstated and Brown was convicted of gun possession Superior. He has also pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding, and can be sentenced to 33 to 41 months behind bars in the phony death-certificate case.
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