The Latest on the Scamming NYU Student

Gothamist cannot get enough of the story of Hakan Yalincak, the NYU senior who is currently in a New Haven jail on charges that he orchestrated a multi-million dollar check kiting scheme. Yesterday, he was denied bail after authorities found a counterfeit check, plus the same stock of paper Yalincak allegedly created a $25 million check from. It's totally a Frank Abagnale, the subject of Catch Me If You Can! Yalincak's defense attorney tried to soft-pedal the crimes, saying that even though he tried to pass fake checks at the banks, there were no victims. Plus, even though the family was behind on its rent and had foreclosed a house, they had money in Turkey! Gotta love defense strategies.

Gothamist's favorite bit is that while Yalincak cried to a judge last week that he was supposed to graduate from NYU on Wednesday while he was in jail, now NYU says he wasn't actually set to graduate!