Man Who Used Corpse to Fake His Own Death Learns His Fate

A Minnesota man will serve more than three years in prison for faking his own death eight years ago in Eastern Europe to collect a $2 million life insurance policy, the AP reports. Fifty-five-year-old Igor Vorotinov, formerly of Maple Grove, was sentenced for mail fraud Monday in US District Court. He got 41 months in prison plus three years of supervised release, and must pay more than $2 million in restitution to Mutual of Omaha Insurance Co., the Pioneer Press reports.

Authorities alleged Vorotinov in 2011 arranged for a corpse to be dressed in his clothes and planted his identification on the body before placing it along a road in the former Soviet republic of Moldova. An insurance company sent his ex-wife a $2 million check in 2012. The scheme also included a 2011 funeral service at a Minneapolis cemetery, where an urn was placed in a niche. Tests later determined the remains were not Vorotinov's. It's not clear whose they were. (More on the strange case here and here.)