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In the news: man pretends to be his dead mother!

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Read the following news story and complete the exercise underneath. Some other key-words are linked to the Cambridge Online Dictionary:

A strange story surfaced in the American media this week about a New York man who was arrested for pretending to be his dead mother. Why would someone do something like that? For money, of course!

The man, whose mother died in 2003, had been claiming her $700 a month in social security benefits. Under the American social security system, those too sick or too old to work can receive money from the government. In addition, the son managed to claim an additional $39,000 in rent assistance.

To fool the authorities, the man had to make them believe that his mother was still alive. This involved dressing up in his mother’s clothes, putting on her make up and walking like and talking like her when he visited banks and the social security offices.

After Mrs Prusik's death, Mr Prusik-Parkin is accused of giving her funeral director a false social security number and date of birth so that her death would not show up in government records.
Police were eventually tipped off to the scam and arrested the Brooklyn man. He now faces charges of theft, forgery and conspiracy. Another man was also arrested for pretending to be her nephew.

Link: Read the BBC's coverage of the story (includes photo)

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  • In the text, the word 'pretend' has a similar meaning to:





  • In the text, the word 'claim' has the samilar meaning to:





  • In this context, 'fool' means:





  • 'Dressing up' means:





  • 'Tip off' means:





  • A 'scam' is: