Henry Terry, 24, was a con man and a scammer who deceived nearly everyone in a Long Island neighborhood into believing he was a cop. He gained a reputation as a friendly policeman who hit the streets each day, in uniform, to supposedly make the neighborhood a safer place for its residents to live. Some days he played the part of a police sergeant; other days he was a parole officer. He was known to pass out a fake business card that labeled him a district commander of a police unit that did not exist. He was quite the charmer—he even duped his roommate into believing that he was a cop. He also wore 9/11 commemorative patches on his fake uniform.
"He had me fooled the whole time," said a young man who shared an apartment with Terry. "He told me he was a state police officer….He was doing police duties. He would pull people over, but never wrote tickets."
"He had the kids idolizing him like he was a super police officer," said one of Terry's neighbors. "He would come out in his uniform every day, like he was going to work. He would flash his lights for the kids. He would let them play with the siren."
In actuality, Henry Terry was an unemployed convicted criminal who was on probation for arson, and he went out every day using his fake uniform, fake gun, fake car, fake badge and handcuffs to shake down drug dealers, hookers, and anyone else from whom he could get a payoff. He was very convincing, and he reportedly made significant money from his scams.
"He always had stories," said another neighbor. "It was like watching an episode of 'Cops.'" The neighbor said that Terry entertained the locals with his stories about his busts, arrests, and the supposed heroism that went along with his made-up actions.
Although he typically drove a late-model Ford Crown Victoria, outfitted with lights, siren, and a public address system, he was known to sometimes commandeer a vehicle for "police business." On one occasion Terry told a neighborhood resident that he needed the resident's vehicle, a 2005 Hummer, for police business. The resident turned the Hummer over to him after Terry told him that he would be paid for its use. He carried out a similar scam when he told a victim that he needed his Toyota Land Cruiser for use in an ongoing FBI investigation. After the resident turned it over to him, he sold it and kept the money.
Using 10 cellular telephones and sometimes wearing a bulletproof vest, Terry nearly always carried with him an official-looking clipboard—complete with forms that looked real—and took detailed notes whenever he pulled someone over or was otherwise "investigating" a crime that had occurred. Terry got away with this particular scam for months, and wasn't busted until the owner of the Toyota Land Cruiser that Terry had commandeered reported him to the real police. The report eventually got Terry busted, in January 2007, and the police would ultimately learn that his alleged string of crimes went back at least two years.
