Weekend at Virgie's

Two New York men have taken the term "dole bludger" to new heights after they tried to cash in the social security cheque of their dead friend. The men, James O'Hare and David Daloia were charged with wheeling the corpse of their friend around Manhattan to cash in an office chair to cash in his benefits. Apparently, when they went into the Social Security office, the clerk asked to see the man named on the cheque, Virgilio Cintron. The pair agreed to bring him in, but by the time they went back to the sidewalk where they had left him, a crowd of people had gathered around the deceased man. During court proceedings the two men maintained their innocence, insisting that when they wheeled their friend out the front door he was very much alive. Because the autopsy was not conclusively able to pinpoint a time of death, the pair were acquitted on the basis that prosecuters could not prove that the deceased was actually dead at the time.

The story has been circulating around radio stations on the east coast of America, with shock jocks expressing their outrage at the event. It is disgraceful, they say, that this man was receiving social security cheques in the first place, since it is clear that he wouldn't work in an iron lung ...