Man pleads not guilty to faking plane crash death
1/22/2009PENSACOLA, Fla. An Indiana investment adviser has pleaded not guilty to charges he deliberately crashed a plane in the Florida Panhandle in a botched effort to fake his death and escape financial ruin.
Marcus Schrenker appeared in federal court in Pensacola on Thursday morning. Judge Roger Vinson ordered the 38-year-old amateur pilot sent to Miami for psychiatric evaluation by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Schrenker s attorney says he is not mentally competent for trial.
He was arrested at a campground near Tallahassee, where federal agents say he tried to kill himself after parachuting from his plane in Alabama and driving off on a motorcycle he had stashed nearby.
Also Thursday, investors in Indiana testified that he d been improperly moving money for years.