Son who helped father fake drowning gets jail time in scam

NEW YORK -- A Long Island man who admitted helping his father fake his own drowning was sentenced to a year in jail Tuesday, the latest twist in an unwieldy case that became a textbook example of how not to get away with it.

Jonathan Roth, 23, apologized as he was sentenced Tuesday in Mineola, N.Y., 17 months after he reported his father, Raymond Roth, missing in the waves off a popular Long Island beach.

“I realize what I did was wrong,” said the younger Roth, who could have avoided jail time if he had complied with a deal his attorney struck with Nassau County prosecutors last year. But the deal fell apart after Roth failed to appear for a court appearance in September.

Enter Michelle Esquenazi of Empire Bail Bonds, who tracked Roth to Ohio using his cellphone number. “We used a certain amount of trickery as we do in our business,” Esquenazi told reporters as she explained how her bounty hunters captured Roth a few days after his missed court appearance.

In short, she said they sent an attractive woman to his front door. He opened it and was arrested and brought back to New York.

Jonathan Roth has said he was coerced into taking part in the scam, which prosecutors said his father crafted to get $410,000 in life insurance. Jonathan pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy stemming from the scam.

Things fell apart when the elder Roth’s then-wife, Evana, found emails that father and son had exchanged about the plot.

Evana, who was Jonathan’s stepmother, called police. She also called a divorce lawyer.

Raymond Roth’s fatherly vanishing act sparked a massive search on land and sea at Jones Beach in July 2012. He eventually was caught speeding in South Carolina and charged with insurance fraud.

Like his son, Raymond Roth had hoped to avoid a long jail term, so he pleaded guilty last March to faking his own death. But before he could appear for his sentencing, Roth was arrested on new charges of impersonating a police officer and attempted kidnapping of a woman he allegedly tried to force into his van.

He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.