Unlike last time, con artist's death is for real
Hoodude
May 28, 2003
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-bigman28.html
Identity thief extraordinaire Joseph Kalady is dead.
For real, this time.
Kalady, 62, of Chicago, was facing federal charges that he had faked
his death in late 2001 to skip out on a federal prosecution and even
provided a corpse to fill in for him.
To obtain the body, Kalady allegedly murdered a neighborhood handyman
in 2001 as part of the scheme, the feds charged.
The only problem was that Kalady tipped the scales at 450 pounds.
The man who was supposed to pass as Kalady weighed less than half
that.
The feds got suspicious, tracked the very much alive Kalady down and
put him behind bars while he awaited trial.
On Tuesday, though, the feds got word that the real Kalady died while
he was in a federal prison medical center in Springfield, Mo., where
he truly was sick.
"In a sense, we have come full circle," said federal prosecutor T.
Markus Funk, who played a key role in trying to bring Kalady to
justice.
Kalady died from acute renal failure at 11:55 a.m. Tuesday at the
prison medical facility, where he had been since March 25, a prison
spokesman said.
In addition to being morbidly obese, Kalady suffered from diabetes and
serious respiratory problems, said his attorney, Kent Carlson, who
visited him last Wednesday.
"It was pretty obvious to me that he wasn't in good shape," Carlson
said.
The announcement of Kalady's death came in court Tuesday, during a
hearing that had been scheduled weeks ago to discuss the state of
Kalady's health.
Kalady possibly had faced the death penalty in the murder case, but
prosecutors had made no announcement on what final decision they made.
Prosecutors will check the coroner's report on Kalady and may take
other steps to be assured he really is dead.
Kalady originally got in trouble with the feds for running what
prosecutors called a fake document mill out of a storefront on the
Northwest Side of Chicago.
He had an extensive criminal record and even once hid out in a
Wisconsin monastery, when there was a warrant out for his arrest. "He
was quite a character," Carlson said.
--
If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.
- Juan Ramón Jiménez