-Caveat Lector-
Faked death has some real consequences
By MICHAEL P. MAYKO
July 20 - BRIDGEPORT -- It was planned as the perfect crime.
Travel to Mexico, dig up a grave, load the corpse into a rented Chevrolet
Suburban and stage a fiery July 11, 1998, crash near Monterrey, Mexico.
Then, sit back and wait until Kemper Life Assurance and CNA Life
Insurance pay $7 million in life insurance benefits.
The problem was that Madison T. Rutherford, 39, of Bethel,
overestimated the willingness of insurance companies to pay and
underestimated the abilities of forensic scientists.
On Thursday, Rutherford -- who began using that name in the late 1980s
instead of John Patrick Sankey, his given name -- appeared very much alive
as he listened to U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill send him to prison
for the next five years, the maximum sentence for wire fraud.
Next month, L. Rhynie Jefferson, Rutherford's estranged wife who is 20
years his senior, also faces sentencing on the wire fraud charge. She has
filed for divorce.
Recovered by Mexican police from the charred remains of the vehicle was
a medical alert necklace containing the word penicillin and the name M.
Rutherford and a wristwatch inscribed To Madison, Love Rhynie.
The fake death was staged when Rutherford traveled to Mexico with a
retired Connecticut State Police trooper to deliver a rare dog to a breeder.
The trooper was not charged, after passing a lie detector test.
This is one of the most serious crimes I've seen, said Underhill, who
has been a federal judge for two years. You've left a lot of pain and loss
in the wake -- a wake driven by a desire for financial gain.
For more than five hours Thursday afternoon, Underhill heard how much
pain Rutherford caused.
Particularly, the pain felt by Brigitte Beck, a 72-year-old massage
therapist from Norwalk. Beck testified that Rutherford bilked her out of
about $300,000 and her New Canaan Court home, which is in foreclosure as a
result of the $482,000 in mortgages he obtained on it.
She met Rutherford while treating his wife. The couple convinced her
that Rutherford was a successful financial adviser.
Whatever Madison advised me to do, Beck said, I went along with it.
She also went along with his story about his death, knowing full well
he was alive, pointed out Assistant U.S. Public Defender Paul Thomas,
Rutherford's attorney.
Beck admitted she initially lied to the FBI about her knowledge. She
even allowed Rutherford to live in her home when he first returned to the U
S.
Beck claimed, during questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher
Kit Schmeisser, that Jefferson told her Rutherford staged his death because
the Mafia was after him. She claimed Jefferson said Rutherford was being
protected by the FBI and was in frequent contact with the agency.
During the sentencing, John Sankey, Rutherford's natural father,
thanked the FBI for arresting his son.
If not for you folks, he would still be on the run, Sankey said.
The FBI arrested Rutherford in Boston last November. This occurred
after a Hartford private investigator working for Kemper found Rutherford,
now known as Thomas Hamilton, working as a comptroller for Double Decker
Studios in Boston.
Previously, Kemper hired Dr. William M. Bass, a forensic anthropologist
to examine the bones a Mexican medical examiner certified as Rutherford's.
Bass determined the bones belonged to a 50-year-old person of American
Indian ancestry.
Later, the FBI said it found some unusual reading among Rutherford's
belongings. These included books and pamphlets entitled Modern Identity
Changer: How to Create a New Identity, and Paper Trip III, Master Guide to a
New Identity.
Sankey told Underhill his son fell under the spell of Jefferson, a
psychic who uses horoscopes to make readings, when he was teen-ager.
She would show up at Lake Candlewood [where Rutherford was a lifeguard]
One day she asked him to paint her apartment in New Milford.
Schmeisser presented a different view of Rutherford through Beck's
testimony.
The prosecutor also attempted to dispel the controlling wife theory by
playing a tape-recorded phone call Rutherford made to Jefferson from jail.
On the tape, Rutherford repeatedly tells Jefferson that the FBI is on
to her and that she needs to take money, jewelry and clothes and get out of
their Bethel home within 15 minutes.
©1999-2001 MediaNews Group, Inc. All rights to republication are
reserved.
Connecticut Post incorporates The Bridgeport Post,
The Telegram and The Valley Sentinel
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