Arbas to have arraignment

November 19, 2008 04:00 am

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COOPERSTOWN _ The son of a Laurens man missing since 2000 will be arraigned today on charges of fraud and forgery.

Matthew M. Arbas faces charges of first-degree scheme to defraud and six counts of second-degree forgery. The indictment was handed up Nov. 6 in state Supreme Court of Otsego County on Nov. 6 before Justice Michael Coccoma.

According to the indictment, the incidents occurred in 2002, 2003 and 2004 in Otsego County, including instances in the towns of Oneonta and Laurens.

Arbas is not in jail. He was originally charged in June 2007 with nine counts of second-degree forgery, six counts of second-degree possession of a forged instrument, two counts of third-degree grand larceny and two counts of falsifying business records. Those charges related to the alleged theft of $60,000 from his father, Herman, after he went missing.

It was unclear if those charges and the ones in this month's indictment are related. In June of this year, Otsego County District Attorney John Muehl said the original charges remained in local criminal court.

In January 2007, Arbas admitted to abducting a Navy pilot in Virginia in 2005. He was sentenced to a year in jail.

Herman Arbas, a farmer, was last seen in 2000, but wasn't reported missing until 2005. State police most recently searched his property in June after obtaining a search warrant. That search yielded no information as to Arbas' body or whereabouts, an investigator said.