Losing a parent is always a difficult experience, but most of us do our best to leave our loved ones behind after the funeral. Not Thomas Parkin, who rather than bury his mother and finalize her financial records attempted to physically become his mother in a Brooklyn, New York real estate scam.

After his mother passed away in 2003, Parkin received and cashed his mother’s social security checks for six years before being caught. Even more, he filed as lawsuit in his mother’s name over an apartment building left to him by his ailing mother nine months before she passed away.

In the 1990s, the real Mrs. Parkin deeded a Brooklyn apartment building to her son to own and manage. He was forced to sell the building in January, 2003 at a foreclosure auction for not keeping up on his bills. Just a few months later, Parkin and his partner in crime, Mhilton Rimolo, filed suit against the new owner for fraud. The lawsuit was filed under his dead mother’s name.

Over the following months, Parkin and Rimolo undertook a serious effort to change documents to show that his mother was still alive. The duo went as far as meeting with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office and dressed Parkin as his dead mother in a red cardigan and manicured nails with an oxygen mask in tow to support her poor health at her purported elderly age.

All came crashing down for Parkin when his fraud was exposed. He now faces 83 years in prison for fraud charges relating to the real estate lawsuit and fraudulently accepting social security payments.

Read more at NBC 24.