False death claim brings charges

PHOENIX -- A Phoenix woman who said her foster son died in the Sept. 11 attack, only to have the man found alive in North Carolina, said Friday she will fight extradition to New York.

Casey O'Shay, 45, is among 22 people accused of lying to receive relief funds totaling more than $759,000.

"I think it's wrong for people to defraud anything," O'Shay said during a hearing. "I teach my children the right thing to do is to abide the law."

She is charged in New York with larceny and filing a false document in Dana Parsons' supposed death at the World Trade Center. Prosecutors say she accepted about $2,000 from a relief fund to attend a New York service for victims including Parsons, who is alive in Greensboro, N.C.

Parsons, 31, said he was baffled to learn of the claims. He called O'Shay a family friend he hasn't seen in 12 years.