New Jersey Man Pretends To Be Non-Existent Twin Brother To Avoid Traffic Tickets

A 58-year-old man from Hackensack, a city in New Jersey’s Bergen County with a population of 43,010 in 2010, according to U.S. Census data, told authorities that they had the wrong man as he insisted that he was “Tony” and it was his twin brother who had several traffic citations.

As it turns out, Tony doesn’t exist, as Olawale Agoro does not have a twin brother.

Still, the man managed to repeatedly use the excuse, at times successfully, to sway authorities in his favor. He begged the court clerks on two occasions, while pretending to be Tony, to grant adjournments for his twin brother (who was actually him), as he claimed that his brother was in Nigeria mourning the death of their father. The clerks subsequently granted him not one, but two adjournments.

Agoro showed up in Maywood Municipal Court on September 19, where he identified himself as Tony and claimed that he was legally blind, according to Maywood Police Chief David Pegg. To Agoro’s dismay, the police officer who had pulled him over, Officer Matthew Parodi, was present in the courtroom and knew that he was the same individual that he had stopped and not the twin his masquerading to be.

Chief Pegg indicated that Parodi had observed the defendant walking around and passing papers back and forth to courtroom officials and didn’t appear to exhibit any difficulty in doing so.

Following the court proceedings, Parodi was informed that the man was asking strangers in the parking lot if they would drive his car around the corner. Parodi then observed an individual drive his car around the block, where he then took over as driver. At this point, Parodi pulled him over on Passaic Street in Rochelle Park and issued him three additional traffic tickets. Agoro’s car was impounded the same afternoon.

In order to retrieve his vehicle from impound, he admitted that he was not blind, but authorities in Maywood requested that the Motor Vehicle Commission evaluate the man’s claim.

The man requested a later court date, missed it, got the court clerks to grant adjournments while pretending to be Tony, but then he missed his court date yet again this past Wednesday. He was subsequently arrested, as the township’s municipal court judge issued warrants for his arrest as a result of his failure to appear. He then appeared in court the following day, once again claiming to be his twin brother, but at this point, the clerks decided to call township police who questioned him about “Tony.”

Detective James DePreta and Officer Ken Stapleton questioned Agoro about his twin brother and eventually matched a birthmark under his lip on his driver’s license photo to that of Agoro. A fingerprint analysis then determined that he was indeed who they thought he was and that Tony did not exist.

He was then arrested, and according to Rochelle Park Police Chief Robert Flannelly, he initially resisted.

Agoro was sent to Bergen County Jail, where his bail was set at $20,000 without the option to pay 10 percent to secure his release. It’s unknown at this time whether he’s hired an attorney.

Flannelly described the man’s claims and the events which surrounded them as “just another example of the extremes people will go to escape justice.”

The Inquisitr previously reported that rapper Snoop Dogg pretended to be a white guy named “Todd” on Instagram, but nobody knows why.

What do you think of the Hackensack man’s attempts to beat the system which currently has him incarcerated?

[Image via Rochelle Park Police Department]