Sister of dead man shocked by scheme
BY MELISSA GRACE and LARRY McSHANE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, January 10th 2008, 2:07 AM
The sister of a dead man wheeled around Hell's Kitchen in an office chair can't believe his best friend allegedly used her brother's corpse to run a twisted check-cashing scam.
Elizabeth Cintron told the Daily News she hopes her brother Virgilio Cintron died on the way to the check-cashing shop - and wasn't propped up in the chair by James O'Hare and another dope, as cops and witnesses say.
"Some days he couldn't walk so good, and Jimmy would take him to the check-cashing place," Elizabeth Cintron told The News. "Maybe he was alive and died on his way."
Hardly, police say.
O'Hare and David Daloia, both 65, were busted Tuesday in the "Weekend at Bernie's" stunt.
The dumb and dumber duo were arraigned in Criminal Court early this morning on forgery and attempted petty larceny charges as well as failure to properly dispose of a body. Bail was set at $1,000 each.
In her failed request for $20,000 bail, Assistant District Attorney Carolyn Hocderness said both men had extensive criminal records but gave no details.
"We didn't do anything," Daloia, of Queens, declared earlier as the scruffy pair was led from the Midtown North stationhouse. O'Hare remained silent as he was loaded into a police car.
O'Hare, who shared a W. 52nd St. apartment with Virgilio Cintron, found the 66-year-old dead in the home Tuesday. Rather than get help, O'Hare and Daloia grabbed Cintron's final $355 Social Security check, put his remains in an office chair and headed to the nearby Pay-O-Matic check cashing outlet on Ninth Ave., cops said.
The corpse quickly drew a crowd, including a detective, and the suspects were caught. Cintron apparently died of natural causes, although the medical examiner said a final determination was pending.
Elizabeth Cintron, 58, said her family has no money for her brother's burial. Her brother, once a counselor in a Manhattan AIDS clinic, had stopped working about 15 years ago when he fell ill, she said.
Neighbors described Virgilio Cintron and O'Hare as inseparable, saying O'Hare became a caretaker for Cintron, who suffered from Parkinson's disease.
But Italian tourist Gianmaria Solini said he spotted Cintron's body splayed out across a staircase in the apartment building. It was obvious he was dead, and Solini offered to get help.
But O'Hare waved him off.
"Oh, no, it's okay," O'Hare said, according to Solini. "He's going to wake up."
lmcshane@nydailynews.com
