FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Jan. 13 (UPI) -- A Fort Lauderdale, Fla., man has pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining $68,000 in damages from the Red Cross for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Paul Ian Henn pleaded to grand theft charges Wednesday before Broward County Circuit Judge Marc Gold, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Thursday. Maximum penalty is 15 years in prison and he will be sentenced Jan. 19.
Prosecutors said Henn claimed his domestic partner of four years, Jeff John Anderson, was in a meeting at a World Trade Center brokerage house the morning of the attack in New York. Henn filed a missing persons report and began to seek death benefits.
But in February 2002 he tried to get The Express, a south Florida gay and lesbian newspaper, to do a story on him and it backfired.
The newspaper found holes in his story and Henn disappeared. An arrest warrant was issued and he was arrested in Dallas in 2003.
He jumped $5,000 bail but was arrested in Texas again in October.
