Metro

LI man may have faked own drowning to claim life insurance, get away from wife

A Long Island man may have faked his own death to get his hands on life-insurance money — and to get away from his wife, who sobbed to The Post yesterday that she learned he was alive only through e-mails he had sent his son.

And he didn’t have very nice things to say about her.

“DO NOT allow that a–hole to give the house away,’’ Raymond Roth, 47, of Massapequa, allegedly wrote to his 22-year-old son, Jonathan, referring to wife Evana the day before he supposedly vanished while swimming off Jones Beach.

He was so calculating, he even left his shorts, shirt, shoes and wallet — without his driver’s license — on the beach for her to find, Evana said.

Evana cried about discovering the e-mails on her stepson’s computer Wednesday, four days after her husband was believed to have drowned.

“This is a terrible nightmare that I just want to wake up from,’’ said the 43-year-old woman. “Why did he do this? I think I’m just numb.’’

Evana said that up until she found the e-mails, she had thought everyone believed that her husband, an unemployed computer manager, was dead.

In the damning e-mails, Raymond also wrote to his son: “I need to get to the bank for cash for the trip.”

He adds: “about the jewelry we spoke of yesterday, you need to whisper in [a relative’s] ear about it and do not worry she will get it,” and, “tell [another relative] i handed you the papers — then you JUST noticed that there was an envelope with [his] name on it (the last Will and Testemnet [sic]) then hand it to him.”

In another e-mail Raymond sent to his son, he wrote, “you will need to help me get my car loaded. get your f–king ass out of bed you lazy bastard.’’

In a third, he adds, “there needs to be a way for me to find out how things are going. call me Sunday night at 8 PM at the resort.

“you cannot call from your phone,’’ the dad allegedly warned. “go to a pay phone or borrow your friends phone. you must call within 15 minutes of the determined call time in order to be sure i will be available.”

Evana said she immediately called Raymond’s brother when she saw the e-mails. He came over, and they called the cops.

Police in Orlando, Fla., were directed to an address to find him, authorities said — but he was gone.

He was stopped for speeding on I-95 in Santee, SC, yesterday morning and let go after telling cops there he had gotten in a fight with his wife and left.

Long Island cops said that they’ve since been in contact with him by phone and that he told them he was coming in to talk.

It was unclear whether charges will be filed against him or anyone else, they said.

Meanwhile, “he withdrew money from all my accounts,” his wife sobbed as she spoke in the office of her lawyer, Lenard Leeds.

“While I was crying and thinking he had drowned, he was vacationing in a resort and having a drink in the pool.”

Evana said her husband began acting suspiciously in January when “he increased his life-insurance policy.” She said she didn’t know who the beneficiary was.

“He tripled it,” she said. “He also did revise his will on Wednesday before the beach.”

She said he then recently began getting into trouble at his work at Level 3 Communications at 1 Penn Plaza in Herald Square.

He was demoted and promptly threatened to shoot the two supervisors who had bumped him, she said.

The threat led Nassau County cops to go to the family’s home to confiscate the licensed handgun Roth owned.

Roth was fired the day after the threats.

Level 3 declined to comment.

His wife said her hubby’s bizarre behavior continued.

He insisted on putting the house up for sale the next Wednesday.

He started packing up all his suits.

“I said, ‘You haven’t even put out a résumé, and you want to sell the house? You’ll need your suits for interviews,’ ” Evana said.

“He told me he didn’t need [the clothes] — he would go back to driving a truck,” she said.

“On the day he went to the beach, he told me he was going to his mother’s house,” she recalled.

“I said, ‘How long are you going to be? Are you going to be home for dinner?’ He said, ‘I’ll be home in an hour,’ ” she said.

A few hours later, the wife said, her stepson, Raymond’s son, Jonathan, called her.

“[He] said, ‘Dad went into the water and he didn’t come out,’ ” she recalled.

Her stepson swore his dad was missing and presumed drowned, she said.

“If these allegations are true, this is one of the most despicable acts I have ever seen,” Leeds said.

Police confirmed that Jonathan Roth called 911 to report his dad missing near the beach’s Field 6 in an area where there were no lifeguards. Jonathan could not be reached for comment.

A family neighbor said that he ran into Jonathan on Monday after his dad had been missing for two days and that the man told him, “My dad’s gone, my dad’s dead.”

“The son was not crying,” the neighbor recalled.

Additional reporting by Jim Hooker and Lorena Mongelli

ELABORATE SCHEME: Raymond Roth told his son in an e-mail not to let his “a--hole” wife dispose of their Massapequa house (above) before he allegedly faked his own death.

ELABORATE SCHEME: Raymond Roth told his son in an e-mail not to let his “a–hole” wife dispose of their Massapequa house (above) before he allegedly faked his own death. (Dennis Clark)

He made sure his missus found his shoes, clothes, wallet and cellphone on the beach in the hopes that she would believe he had drowned.

He made sure his missus found his shoes, clothes, wallet and cellphone on the beach in the hopes that she would believe he had drowned. (Dennis Clark)

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