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Partner's sad Sept. 11 Story Leads to Inquiry
Megan O'Matz, Sun-Sentinel 
March 20, 2002

A young, grieving gay man, Patric Ian Henn, made for a sad and sympathetic story.

The World Trade Center had crumbled, killing his lover of four years. In seconds, his life tumbled from financial fortune to seeking the help of relief agencies. And even they were slow to validate his domestic partner relationship.

Or so he said.


In the cramped, storefront office of The Express, South Florida's gay and lesbian community newspaper, publisher Norm Kent was skeptical.

News Editor Ian Drew had written a conventional feature story on Henn, a Fort Lauderdale man with a sad tale of loss and injustice. But aspects of Henn's story were puzzling.

Henn claimed he and his partner lived lavishly, with homes in New York and South Beach, but he told relief agencies weeks after the attack that he had nowhere to live.

"Ian said the Red Cross set him up in an apartment and they flew him to New York, and I said: `But why?'" Kent recalled. "If this guy is living this opulent lifestyle with a partner, and they have two vehicles, why is he suddenly homeless and desperate for assistance?"

Henn told The Express that the bank repossessed his cars and froze his bank accounts after his partner's death.

But when asked by the paper to show financial records, pictures or other documents verifying his relationship with the dead man, Henn could not, contending that the materials were in storage.

A longtime Broward County criminal defense attorney with a passion for journalism, Kent refused to let the matter rest.

"I remember turning to Ian and saying: `No. The guy's a fraud. The only thing in storage is the truth, and we're going to expose him."

Contradictions emerge


Who was Patric Ian Henn? Did his lover die in the World Trade Center attack? Or had Henn created an elaborate hoax that fooled the American Red Cross and other charitable organizations into giving him thousands of dollars?

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Henn, 27, moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Fort Lauderdale's Middle River Terrace neighborhood.

"He said he had just recently lost a partner in the 9-11 disaster," neighbor Barbara Cardino recalled.

Henn explained that his lover, Jeff John Andersen, had a meeting at Merrill Lynch in the World Trade Center the morning of Sept. 11 and had called Henn on his cellular phone before the planes struck.

Henn left Cardino and others with the impression that Andersen was in his 40s or 50s and that he had supported Henn financially in a grand "Louis Vuitton" lifestyle in a home in South Beach.

"We had 200 pairs of shoes alone in our apartment," Henn told The Express.
When he arrived at the Fort Lauderdale apartment, however, Cardino noted that Henn had only "two duffel bags."

Neighbor Ellen Robin described him as "a Fort Lauderdale club kid" who liked to party. "He's a big old drama queen," she said.

He did not work, and was considered a bit of a bon vivant. Neighbors saw him drinking a glass of wine one day while changing a tire.

He had two pictures on display in his apartment, Robin said: one of neighbors decorating his Christmas tree and the other of him with O.J. Simpson.

There were no framed pictures of Andersen, though Robin said Henn showed her a snapshot pulled from a photo album of a bare-chested man, purportedly Andersen. He appeared to be in his 20s.
Evicted -- and married

In its Feb. 25 story, titled "Disaster and Deceit," The Express published a photo of Henn taken by Fort Lauderdale police.

Twice in February, Henn was arrested on a charge of driving without a license.

In the second instance, Henn told the officer he had a New York driver's license, but the officer could find no record of one.

It was not Henn's first brush with the law. In May 2000, police evicted him for failing to pay rent on an apartment at 751 Meridian Ave., Miami Beach.

Dennis Bedard, attorney for the property owner, recalled Henn well.

"The day we were going to throw him out ... he calls my client up and tells my client that he's got a gun, and he's not going out voluntarily. He's going to duke it out with the police."

Bedard warned authorities, and Henn did not resist the eviction.

The $750-a-month apartment was the same one Henn told New York relief agencies he and Andersen shared: in grand style.

Bedard scoffed at the idea. "There's nothing elegant about this place," he said, recalling that it was furnished with "junk."

More surprising, however, is the name of the second person on the lease: Robyn Louise Paterson, Henn's wife.

Miami-Dade court records show the pair married in December 1999 in Miami Beach. Paterson is described on the certificate as being "foreign."

No divorce record can be found for the couple in Florida. 

Missing-person filing

 
Two days after the twin towers fell, Henn filed a missing-person report with the New York Police Department, according to Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the New York Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

In the report, Henn stated that his partner, Jeff John Andersen of Miami Beach, was lost in the terrorist attack. Andersen's name is included on a city Web site (www.nyc.gov/dna) listing people reported missing.

"We haven't identified any remains belonging to him," Borakove said.

On the police report, Henn gave Andersen's birth date as July 4, 1973. At the time of his death, he would have been 28.

In late September, Henn came to the attention of the Empire State Pride Agenda, a New York civil rights group for gays and lesbians.
ESPA had been advocating for gays and lesbians who lost partners in the World Trade Center, recognizing that they might be treated unfairly by relief agencies because their unions were not legally recognized marriages.

Henn sought help from the group in securing a death certificate for Andersen.
"He was saying that he had filed all the necessary paperwork, all the documentation, and he was getting nowhere," said Matt Foreman, then ESPA's executive director. "But when I'd get on the line with someone from the Medical Examiner's Office, it would turn out there had been no paperwork filed."

At one point, Henn told Foreman that Andersen's elderly mother had come from California to New York, had filed for the death certificate, and had prepared a sworn affidavit attesting to the fact that Henn was Andersen's partner.

"We could never find that documentation," Foreman said. When he asked if Andersen's mother could return, Henn said she was on safari in northern Africa.

Henn told ESPA that their joint bank account was frozen upon Andersen's death, that their belongings were in storage, and that relief agencies lost his paperwork.

Doubts grow

"Frankly, a lot of people did submit paperwork, and it was lost in the confusion of the early weeks," he said. "To me, it was a terrible confluence of events."
As the weeks went on, however, ESPA leaders began to doubt Henn's story. ESPA spokesman Joe Tarver said he looked online for Andersen's name in obituaries and death notices in South Florida papers, and searched phone directories for Andersen at two Miami addresses Henn gave.

"I could find nothing," he said.

Andersen is not included on The Associated Press' list of confirmed dead in the terrorist attack, nor is he on CNN's.

There is no record in Broward Circuit Court's probate section for Andersen's estate, nor in Miami-Dade's.

Neither Henn nor Andersen is registered as a domestic partner in Broward County.

In an affidavit for a death certificate, which Kent said he saw, Henn listed a Social Security number for Andersen. When checked, the number was not associated with anyone named Andersen.

Similarly, Henn's assertion that Andersen had a meeting in the towers with Merrill Lynch cannot be confirmed.

Selena Morris, spokeswoman for Merrill Lynch, said the brokerage house did not have offices in the World Trade Center. Its headquarters are across the street, in the World Financial Center.

Concerned, Tarver confronted Henn in a Nov. 29 phone conversation, telling him he needed to substantiate his relationship with Andersen.

The agency was working with 22 gays and lesbians who lost partners Sept. 11, Tarver said. 
 
"Everyone was able to come up with the types of documentation needed except Patric. Everyone."

During the call, Henn demanded money from ESPA, Tarver said.

"He became very shrill and said we wouldn't like it much if he went to the press and told them we weren't helping people when they needed help."

The organization never heard from Henn again.

In December, Henn called The Express, complaining about ESPA and praising the American Red Cross.

Agency investigates

Red Cross officials will not say how much money Henn received from the agency.

But Ellen Robin, Henn's neighbor, said Henn showed her a check from the Red Cross for $14,700. "He asked me to drive him to the bank, which I did," she said.

The Red Cross paid to fly Henn back and forth from South Florida to New York and put him up in hotels, Tarver said. The agency also paid two months' rent and the security deposit on Henn's Middle River Terrace apartment, according to a real estate agent who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Laila Haddad, spokeswoman for the Broward chapter of the American Red Cross, could not explain why the agency awarded money to Henn without complete verification of his claims. She said Henn initially dealt with national Red Cross officials in New York. "We provided the assistance that national told us to give him," she said.

Haddad said Henn's case has been turned over to a national Red Cross fraud task force set up to investigate suspicious claims relating to Sept. 11. The agency will work with local authorities to recover any funds shown to be obtained fraudulently, she said.

Henn is not the only person to be accused of duping relief agencies.

Armond Mascelli, American Red Cross senior director of disaster services, said the organization is examining 30 to 50 cases of potential fraud.

And as of Jan. 31, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office had charged 31 people with Sept. 11-related fraud, including 12 Port Authority cafeteria employees who received emergency cash grants from the Red Cross, claiming they were unemployed after the tragedy, when in fact they continued to be paid.

Where is Henn?

Did someone named Jeff John Andersen exist? Kent chortles when asked, noting that it's not the paper's judgment to make.

But, he adds: "My gut feeling is no."

Henn, meanwhile, cannot be found.

Neighbors have not seen him at his apartment since The Express article appeared Feb. 25. He did not respond to a note left on his door by the Sun-Sentinel.

He does not have a home phone. Cell phone numbers provided by acquaintances are incorrect or have been disconnected.

And the pressure is mounting. The Express story has been e-mailed to thousands of gay list server subscribers around the country, and Henn is in the process of being evicted for falling behind on his rent.

German Narvaez, manager of Henn's Middle River Terrace apartment, said Henn claimed his accountant had mailed the check. But Narvaez visits the apartments each month to collect the rent personally.

"He told me he sent it to the address in the contract, but there is no address in the contract," Narvaez said. "He lies too much."
 
Staff Researchers Barbara Hijek and Kathryn Pease contributed to this report.
Megan O'Matz can be reached at
momatz@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4518.
Copyright (c) 2002, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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