"Missing swimmer’s wife reveals e-mails suggesting he planned to stage death" by N.R. Kleinfield | New York Times, August 04, 2012
NEW YORK — The tangled case of the Long Island man who was feared drowned last weekend in the waters off Jones Beach — but who turned up speeding down the highway in South Carolina five days later — took a new twist on Friday, when his wife said he had staged it all without her knowledge.
The man, Raymond Roth, 47, an unemployed telecommunications manager from Massapequa, N.Y., was reported missing from the beach by his son, Jonathan, 22, touching off an exhaustive air, water, and land search by the police and other agencies.
At a news conference at her lawyer’s office on Friday, Raymond Roth’s wife, Evana, said she had been preparing for her husband’s funeral until she found e-mails on their home computer on Wednesday. The messages were from Raymond Roth to Jonathan and suggested that it was all a plot that the younger Roth was privy to. Jonathan is Evana Roth’s stepson.
She said she then contacted relatives and called the authorities. Early Thursday morning, Raymond Roth was stopped by the police in South Carolina for speeding. The New York State Park Police, which have been investigating the disappearance, spoke to him by phone and said that Roth had assured them he would return to New York and clear things up.
Since the police did not charge him with anything, he was allowed to go on his way. His current location is unknown....
Evana Roth said she did not know what her husband’s motive might be. According to her, he was fired from his job as a manager at Level 3 Communications, a telecommunications company, on July 20, shortly after he had threatened to shoot two supervisors. Around that time, the Nassau County Police Department said that it had contacted Raymond Roth about a licensed gun that he owned and that he voluntarily turned it in on July 21. "He got fired, and it was a downward spiral from there," Evana Roth said.
She said their 12-year marriage was long troubled. She described Raymond Roth as an alcoholic who had mentally abused her for years. Their home was put up for sale last week....
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"Swimmer accused of faking his death arrested for insurance fraud" by Alan Feuer | New York Times, August 16, 2012
NEW YORK —
The man, Raymond Roth, 47, of Massapequa, N.Y., was taken into custody without incident at the Nassau County psychiatric hospital where he admitted himself not long after reports early this month that his disappearance was a hoax.
Roth, who had recently been fired from his job, was initially believed to have disappeared July 28 in unprotected waters off Long Island, prompting an extensive — and fruitless — search. His disappearance, officials said, was reported to 911 by Jonathan Roth, his son, who told the police that he had gone to the beach with his father but lost track of him while answering text messages on his phone.
The search was called off Aug. 1 when Raymond Roth’s brother, Robert, alerted police that Roth was in fact at his timeshare, the West Gate Lake Resort in Orlando. Before the authorities could verify the tip, they received a call from police in South Carolina, who said that Roth had just been stopped for speeding.
Jonathan Roth was earlier arrested on the same charges that his father now faces and subsequently pleaded not guilty.
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Related:
"Boaters rescued a 6-year-old girl from a small reservoir north of New York City after finding her clinging to the floating corpse of a family friend who had taken her to the water to cool off, officials said Tuesday."
Also see: Massive industrial fire in N.Y. sends smoke into Massachusetts; residents urged to stay inside
