Mother of all sick hoaxes

A New York school employee scammed an extra week on a tropical paradise holiday - by fooling her bosses into believing her daughter had died.Joan Barnett had one of her daughters call the school to say her sister had suffered a heart attack in Costa Rica.She then had another daughter call the school later that day to say the sister had died and the family were traveling to the country for a funeral.Mrs Bennet even faxed a forged death certificate of her daughter, Xinia Daley Herman, to Manhattan High School of Hospitality Management as proof of the death.

It meant she was able to spend two-and-a-half weeks in March 2010 - including her school-sanctioned spring break - in the tropical paradise.But a school official grew suspicious of the death certificate because it contained "slightly different fonts which were not aligned properly", according to a report.Costa Rican government officials later confirmed the certificate was a fake, noting the document had identification numbers that had been issued to a man in 2005.When confronted, Mrs Barnett insisted her daughter had died and submitted another death certificate - this time with the month and year changed to March 2010, according to court records.The plot cost Mrs Barnett her job. She also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor over the forgery in Manhattan Criminal Court.