A New York man has been arrested Wednesday for faking his abduction to avoid paying a Super Bowl Bet in the amount of $50,000.
Suspect, Robert Brandel, 60 was arrested in Western New York after police discovered him in the back of his pickup truck with his hands and feet bound in duct tape.
Police said that he told dispatchers that he was abducted at gunpoint Monday by two men who threatened his life and stole $16,000 in cash.
According to a statement in the report, Brandel claims that the robbers had forced him to drive around western New York for two days until they tied him up in the back of the truck and left him in the parking lot where he was found. Authorities said that the alleged suspects were also involved with Brandeis Super bowl betting; however, investigators suggest the claims are all made up.
The investigators proved through more interviews that the suspects, “elaborate story was fabricated” because his motive was clear. He was running a $50,000 pool which he made up names on some of the squares, with the belief that he would win and take home most of the money.
Brandel constructed this scheme because he was unable to come up with the payout and was short from $50,000, according to police.
“This guy ran a football pool, a $50,000 payout football pool. [He] came up with a couple of different ways where he could make money off of it and eventually fell flat,” New York State Police Trooper James O’Callaghan stated in his report. “And now he can’t make money up to the people who obviously or eventually won this football pool.”
Police were suspicious when they discovered Brandel, who had told officers that he had been held captive against his will for multiple days, appeared to be clean-shaven.
“We’re on the third day when we found him, but he’s pretty clean-shaved around his beard,” O’Callaghan said. “A normal person that’s abducted and has gone through something like that, their heart rate would be very high, they’re anxious, depressed, many emotions that will be bubbling up.”
He is being charged with scheme to defraud, a felony, and falsely reporting an incident and is scheduled to appear in court in March, records have not indicated if he will obtain legal help.
