WHERE DID YOU GO: Dennis Shepherd, a 47-year-old man who was reported missing from Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood last May, hiking in Honolulu, Hawaii in happier times.

Dennis Shepherd was an energetic personal assistant living with his girlfriend in Port Washington until he fell into a spiral of paranoia, suspecting everyone of conspiring with the FBI to investigate him—an imaginary probe that, like the real one to find him when he later went missing, may have ended with his demise.

A year ago May 18, the 47-year-old athletic jack of all trades took off running the moment he stepped out of a vehicle from Stony Brook University Hospital’s psych unit, where he was involuntarily committed for a month. He vanished on the sprawling grounds of Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood, where it was a good sprint across fields surrounding the complex into the neighboring woods before he was gone.

Despite a Suffolk County police investigation, a search party combing the nearby 813-acre Oak Brush Plains State Preserve at Edgewood and his picture being distributed to the local news media, he’s still missing. He was delusional, repeatedly put on suicide watch and showed signs of schizophrenia shortly before he vanished, according to his medical records.

A Lake Ronkonkoma resident had reported him to police after Shepherd went door-to-door asking to call the United Nations to report the “conspiracy,” which he later believed involved his neighbor, the officers who hospitalized him, the lawyer he hired to get him out and 75 percent of the hospital staff.

“I want to see how I do without medications,” Shepherd told doctors who decided he needed treatment over his objections—a decision he originally planned to fight when he arrived at Pilgrim for a mental health court hearing, according to court records that show he told doctors he planned “jumping off of a bridge, jumping out of a window, and hanging himself to escape from his paranoid ideation.”

Attorneys hired by his mother recently filed a notice of claim, their first step in a $5-million negligence lawsuit against Stony Brook Hospital, Shepherd’s doctors and the security staffers who oversaw his transfer. His ex-girlfriend blames Suffolk County police, saying detectives in the Missing Person’s Section—a unit that was recently redeployed among the seven precinct squads—did not request a “Golden Alert,” a newly enacted investigative tool similar to the Amber Alert signaled for missing children. The case illustrates the complexity of such searches despite advances designed to find missing persons more quickly.

—Vesselin Mitev, attorney for the family of Dennis Shepherd, who went missing in Brentwood a year ago May 18.

Shepherd’s case is one of more than 85,000 that the National Crime Information Center is tracking. The trail went cold on some of them four decades ago. Last year, more than 22,000 people were reported missing in New York State, according the state Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS).

“The belief was that he’d come to my house because I had his car,” says Joanne Villani, 49, Shepherd’s grief-stricken ex-girlfriend of eight years, recalling how police had checked her home for signs of his return but to no avail. Villani says she picked up the car from where Shepherd had told her he hid it in Westchester when he thought the FBI was closing in, and later she returned it to his family.

“I wasn’t thinking clearly at this time because I was so distraught,” she says. “I was going to work and crying every five minutes.”

Shepherd’s mother, Joan Kiesow of upstate New York, referred a request for comment to Vesselin Mitev, her attorney with Miller Place-based John Ray & Associates, the firm that also represents the family of Shannan Gilbert, whose disappearance from Oak Beach in 2010 led to the discovery of 10 sets of human remains along Ocean Parkway—some of whom police believe to be victims of a serial killer.

“The benefit of hindsight always means to put in sharp relief that which could’ve been done and wasn’t,” says Mitev. “I believe everybody in this case could have done more, from Stony Brook University [Hospital] on down to the chain of people who are responsible for finding those who go missing.”

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is defending the hospital since it is a state facility. “We cannot comment on pending litigation,” says Melissa Grace, a spokeswoman for the office.

Deputy Chief Kevin Fallon, the chief Suffolk police spokesman, maintains that the department did all it could to find Shepherd—same as the rest of the nearly 2,000 missing persons cases they handled last year.

“I understand that it’s a very difficult situation for a family or loved ones of someone who’s missing that they feel that there’s always more that the police department can be doing,” Fallon says. “Any missing case we take very seriously because we always realize that not only the person could injure themselves, but a person may in fact be a victim of some kind of crime and we always approach it that way.”

DESTINATION UNKNOWN

As the manhunt for the Boston bombing suspects showed last month, if law enforcement focuses all of its resources on finding someone, it’s only a matter of time. Or, as in the case of Raymond Roth, who authorities searched for by land, sea and air after he was falsely reported drowned at Jones Beach last summer, sometimes the case is a hoax.

Fugitives and faked-death plots aside, there are generally three types of missing persons: those with cognitive disorders, runaways and crime victims. Aside from adults and seniors with mental disabilities who walk—or in Shepherd’s case, run—off, police more often field reports of missing children, mostly runaways that don’t get much public attention. Amber Alerts—a nationwide program capable of blasting data on missing kids via email, text, TV, radio, highway signs and even Lottery terminals—are typically reserved for child abduction cases.

In late 2011, New York State launched the Missing Vulnerable Adult (MVA) system with nearly identical capabilities, similar to others like it that have been rolled out in most states nationwide. It was touted at the time as the Golden Alert system, a version of Amber Alerts for grown-ups. The MVA system also covers elderly missing people, who had been covered by Silver Alerts.

But, just like teens who runaway from home tend not to be good candidates for Amber Alerts, adults with a mental disability who go missing may wind up in fliers posted on the state’s Missing Persons Clearinghouse website while investigators opt for only alerting local police and hospitals, not using the all-out, statewide MVA alert.

DCJS says there have been 33 MVA alerts statewide since it was enacted, four at the request of Suffolk police, none from Nassau. Det. Sgt. Mark Pulaski, who’s currently assigned Shepherd’s case, says Missing Persons investigators only submitted names to the system and didn’t request alerts. DCJS maintains it issued alerts at the department’s request for Volden Chung, 72, on March 9, 2012; Kurt Werner, 78, on Dec. 26, 2012; Marie Imbis [age unknown] on Jan. 10; and Fredrick Ellis, 90, on Feb. 28. All were found.

“We did extensive searches there utilizing ourselves as well as other groups that had agreed to help, and to this date, obviously we haven’t found him,” Pulaski says, adding that the reason why no Golden Alert was sent out for Shepherd was because the case’s original investigators believed he was still in the area. “Some people are missing, some people are hiding from the police. Dennis Shepherd, by everybody’s account, was hiding from the police.”

There hasn’t been any activity in Shepherd’s bank account since around the time he ran off, Pulaski adds. The family’s lawsuit suggests that he is presumed dead.

“Adults, they’re just not taken as seriously,” says Todd Matthews, a system administrator for NaMus, short for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a national repository that includes records for thousands of missing persons and unidentified remains that is open to law enforcement agencies, medical examiners, coroners and the public.

“When a child’s gone, you know something’s wrong,” he says. “And I think maybe there’s reasonable hesitation on law enforcement to start a manhunt for somebody that might just not be missing, not appreciate the search. You really have to give the local process time.”

It’s not for lack of trying. Nassau and Suffolk counties in recent years have been taking preventative measures to mitigate cases of missing people who are mentally ill.

Nassau has the REACH program—short for Return Every Adult and Child Home—in which the public pre-registers loved ones who suffer from a cognitive disorder such Alzheimer’s disease, Dementia or Autism. Should that person go missing, their information and photo can be shared with police and the media even faster, since it’s already on file. Suffolk does the same, minus the acronym.

Nassau police have alerted the media to more than 130 missing people through REACH since January 2011, although the department lumps them in with Silver Alerts. That’s a misnomer since the missing sometimes include children as young as 14 and adults younger than 65—all of whom are described as having mental issues. More than three dozen of those appear to still be missing and about 10 have been reported missing more than once.

For the same time period, Suffolk County police have alerted the media to 44 Silver Alerts while sticking strictly to missing persons who were of retirement age, a handful of whom are also still missing. Shepherd is the only missing person Suffolk police alerted the media to in recent memory who wasn’t over the age of 64.

But outside the Suffolk police district on the East End, when 16-year-old Ashley Murray left a note threatening suicide before she left her Peconic home earlier this year, Southold Town Police publicized it immediately. The media spared no resources covering the case, reporting in excruciating detail her personal issues as friends harnessed the publicity to organize search parties.

Twelve days later when she walked into a police station safe and sound, her story ended on a positive note. For others in her shoes, it doesn’t always wind up that way.

THE WANTED

MIA: Dennis Shepherd at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships in Flushing before he went missing.

Back at Pilgrim, life has moved on since Shepherd’s disappearance. The same could be said for the new approach to investigating missing persons cases in Suffolk.

Deputy Chief Fallon, the Suffolk police spokesman, says the shift from a specialized unit based at headquarters in Yaphank to detectives working in the seven precincts alongside investigators handling general cases is similar to last year’s redeployment of the gang unit.

“If you have somebody missing say from the First Precinct…it will be the detectives from the First Precinct who will be responsible for the case,” he says. “They know the locations, sometimes they’ll know the person involved, or they’ll know people in the neighborhood involved. And they’re in a much better position, generally speaking, to do that type of investigation than, say, calling up the headquarters where you can speak to specialized detectives out here who aren’t familiar with the players involved.”

Nassau County First Deputy Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter says his department has shifted its approach too, but hasn’t gone as far as Suffolk.

“We use a hybrid approach,” he says. “We have dedicated missing persons people that work out of a detective squad out of headquarters…then we have…our precinct detectives take some ownership and some involvement.

“Do they get more return on their investment by putting those missing persons detectives in precinct squads where they’re decentralized?” he asked rhetorically. “We’ve found that we have a hybrid and that’s what works for Nassau County.”

Mitev, the attorney for Shepherd’s mother, says the family’s anguish drags on, nevertheless.

“With each passing day the possibility that he would return unharmed diminishes exponentially,” he says. “They lose hope every single day that they’ll get him back.”

Those interested in registering a loved one to the REACH Program should call the NCPD’s Asset Forfeiture Unit at 516-573-5775, Monday through Friday 9 am.-4 p.m. to set up an appointment.

To register with the Suffolk County police, contact the Community Outreach Bureau at 631-852-6983.

For more information about the state Missing Persons Clearinghouse, visit www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/missing

Raymond Roth

The man who admitted last week to faking his own death was rearrested Wednesday on suspicion of pretending to be law enforcement while trying to lure a woman into his van, Nassau County police said.

Raymond Roth was charged with criminal impersonation, attempted kidnapping and attempted burglary. He will be arraigned on the new counts Thursday at First District Court in Hempstead.

“We received numerous tips through our Crime Stoppers line naming Mr. Roth as a subject and our investigation took off from there,” Det. Lt. Robert Galgano of the First Squad said, referring to surveillance video of the suspect being aired on News12 Long Island.

Police said the 48-year-old Long Beach resident had asked a 38-year-old woman to get in his van in Freeport, told her he was a cop when she ignored him and then followed her into a check cashing store. He reiterated to workers there that he was a cop and told them to let him into their back room, where she was hiding from him, police have said.

That was hours after Roth pleaded guilty at Nassau County court to fourth-degree conspiracy, a felony, in a plea deal with prosecutors. He’s suspected of trying to lure two other women as well, police said.

Roth was expected to be sentenced in May to 90 days in jail and repay authorities $36,000 for the time and resources wasted searching for him last summer.

Roth’s son, Jonathan, had reported Raymond missing from Jones beach in July, when he told police that his father was swimming when he disappeared. Raymond later was found to be in Florida, alive, and eventually turned himself into police.

Raymond had told the judge he’s taking medication for bipolar disorder and has attempted suicide. He was expected to face up to 15 years in prison if he had been convicted at trial of insurance fraud.

Jonathan also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and filing a false report last week.

Brian Davis, the attorney for Raymond Roth, speaks to reporters outside Nassau COunty court on March 21, 2013.

A Massapequa man has admitted faking his own drowning death in an attempt to escape mounting debt, have his family profit from his life insurance policy and secretly start his life over in Florida.

Raymond Roth pleaded guilty Thursday at Nassau County court to fourth-degree conspiracy, a felony, in a plea deal with prosecutors. He’s expected to be sentenced May 21 to 90 days in jail on the condition that he pays $36,000 in restitution to the U.S. Coast Guard and Nassau police for resources wasted searching for his body at Jones Beach last summer.

“I’m feeling better, I’ve started school,” the 48-year-old unemployed telecommunications worker told Judge Tammy Robbins after recapping his two-week psych-ward stay, diagnoses as bipolar and suicide attempt before he turned himself in to police last August.

Roth’s 22-year-old son, Jonathan, had reported that Raymond went missing while swimming at the beach July 28, prompting a search that lasted days until police learned he was at his time share in Florida. Jonathan pleaded guilty to conspiracy and filing a false report Monday.

“He was not thinking rationally at the time,” Raymond’s Garden City based attorney, Brian Davis, told reporters outside the courthouse. He said his client was planning to get a job on a fishing boat or at a tiki bar in the Sunshine State.

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said the bizarre case proved to be a needless distraction for search and rescue workers.

“This case easily could’ve turned tragic had an actual emergency occurred while this defendant sent first responders on a wild goose chase,” Rice said.

Davis said that Raymond, who is reportedly enrolled in culinary school, is hoping to reconnect with his son, who accused Raymond of abusing him and coercing him to participate in the scheme.

Raymond Roth

Raymond’s wife, Evana, filed for divorce last year after she discovered emails revealing her husband and son had plotted the fake drowning a week in advance. Raymond had also put the family home up for sale, sold his clothes and emptied the couples’ bank accounts.

After the plot started to unravel, Raymond called police himself to say he would turn himself in, then was stopped for speeding in South Carolina while on his way back to New York.

Raymond had faced up to 15 years in prison if he had been convicted at trial of insurance fraud. His son is due back in court April 15. Raymond declined to comment to reporters while leaving the court.

Omar Santiago suffered a head wound after allegedly stealing from a West Sayville wedding.

It turns out 2012 was a bang up year for stupid crime on Long Island as local suspects—some of whom are still fighting their charges—raised the bar for WTF police news moments.

And it wasn’t an easy year to be a stand-out crook. Remember the Sandy crime sprees, gas line assaults and post-superstorm price gougers? Then there’s the alleged public corruption, including the conviction of former Nassau County Legis. Roger Corbin, the arrest of Hempstead Town Clerk Mark Bonilla and a half dozen Nassau County police officers and officials facing various charges over the past 12 months.

While those who made this list didn’t leave anyone dead, some came close or, at the very least, put the suspects and public at risk. Move over Lindsay Lohan, these are our local candidates for TruTV’s World’s Dumbest Criminals.

10. Alleged West Sayville Wedding Gift Thief

Weddings are always nice. Love is in the air. There’s usually an open bar. Families put aside their feuds for a day. But someone always makes an ass of themselves. Or, in Omar Santiago’s case, Suffolk County police said he ruined one couple’s nuptials over Labor Day weekend by trying to steal a box of gift envelopes. The New Jersey teen was quickly apprehended by fellow guests as he ran from the West Sayville Country Club after stuffing a bunch of the envelopes down his pants. Smooth. The gifts were returned and Santiago pleaded not guilty.

9. New Cassel Man Plays Dentist

The tools Nassau police said Manuel Carranza used.

OK, this one is kind of disturbing. Many people are scared of the dentist, but Nassau County police said more than 100 folks had no problem having an undocumented immigrant with a sixth-grade education use unsanitary second-hand tools to perform dental work on them in his dirty New Cassel home/office. A tipster dropped a dime on the wannabe tooth fairy in April—after he’d been running his cash-only business for at least a year. Manuel Carranza was charged with unauthorized practice of a crime, criminal diversion of a prescription and other counts.

8. Bellport Teen Allegedly Brings Drugs to Court

Ah, to be young again. That feeling of invincibility that gets so many kids in trouble is apparently strong with this one. Authorities said that Keandre Hudson swallowed bags of cocaine and heroin before being arrested for fleeing police in October. He passed the drugs while locked up at Suffolk County jail, where he is being held after not posting bail. The 17-year-old Bellport man then allegedly brought the drugs with him to court while pleading not guilty Nov. 20 to fleeing cops and other charges. That’s when investigators searched him, found the narcotics and added new charges, authorities said. What more convenient place to get arrested than before a judge?

7. Garden City Man Accused of Mailing Poo to Ex-wife

Love stinks, as The J. Geils Band famously sang. But federal authorities alleged that Gerald Desiderio took that song a bit too literally when he reportedly mailed alimony checks smeared with poop to his ex-wife in Arizona. The 51-year-old Garden City man apparently took a cue from the likes of drug dealers who don’t realize they can get busted for dropping narcotics in the mail. The feds said Desiderio also mailed vulgar notes, “tasteless objects” and a photo of a knife with a serrated blade. He will face the charges in Arizona, although if there’s any upside to the charges being on the federal level, he won’t have to deal with “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” Joe Arpaio.

6. Drunk Driver Saved by Cops Before Train Hits Her Car

This one could have ended a lot worse. In a scene torn out of The Fugitive, a drunken driver mistakenly turned onto the Long Island Rail Road tracks in Bay Shore last spring, got stuck and had to be rescued by Suffolk County police officers moments before a train smashed into her car. Police had tried to radio ahead to get the train to stop, but there wasn’t enough time. Neither the officers, the driver nor anyone aboard the train were injured, but the Volkswagon was totaled. Oh yea, and the 43-year-old Islandia woman was arrested for DWI.

Suffolk police found this alligator in Mastic Beach Sept. 28.

5. Nine Alligators Found on Long Island in Six Weeks

Here’s the lone stupid crime on this list that remains unsolved. Were there more alligators dumped across Nassau and Suffolk counties before the temperatures dropped to sub-Everglades levels? Maybe. But now that winter’s in full swing, any baby gators that turn up next will likely be frozen to death. The tiny killing machines started popping up Sept. 28 in Mastic Beach. Others were found in Shirley, Wading River, Lake Ronkonkoma, Yaphank and two turned up in Baldwin in two days. The most recent one was discovered in Southampton on Nov. 11. Who knows how many more would’ve been found had Sandy not struck in the middle of this mysterious gator dumping spree.

4. Jason Kidd Nabbed for Hamptons DWI Crash

Jason Kidd in his Southampton police mugshot

What makes the NY Knicks’ point guard arrest stupider than any other drunken driving charge or celebrity brush with law enforcement? The 39-year-old NBA All Star had only signed a $9-million contract with the team 10 days before allegedly wrapping his SUV around a utility pole near his Water Mill home in July. Adding to the stupid timing of the allegations was that they came just as team owner James Dolan decided against matching the Houston Rockets $25-million contract offer for breakout star Jeremy Lin. Kidd’s fighting the charges.

3. Williston Park Man Charged With Shooting Girlfriend Over Zombies

People have strong feelings about the fictional zombie apocalypse. But none more so than The Walking Dead fan Jared Gurman, who Nassau police said was so adamant in his argument that the government can release a zombie virus that he shot his girlfriend of four years in the back outside his Willison Park home Dec. 4—about three weeks before the world didn’t end for the Mayan “apocalypse.” The woman survived and Gurman was charged with second-degree attempted murder. He’s being held on $1 million bail.

2. The Long Island Hot Dog Hooker

Catherine Scalia, aka the Long Island hot dog hooker.

This is one for the ages. Longtime stripper, bikini lover and tube-steak slinger Catherine Scalia, 45, propositioned undercover cops at her Baldwin hot dog truck last May. They charged her with prostitution when they showed up at her East Rockaway home. She argued she only was giving lap dances, not selling sex, then pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor prostitution charge and was sentenced to seven days time served. We’re not judging strippers or wiener salespeople here. What’s so stupid about this case—aside from the hilariously incongruous combination of professions—is that she was busted for doing the same thing in the same spot on Sunrise Highway years prior. And vowed to continue.

1. The Jones Beach Faked Death Plot

Sometimes people joke about faking their own death, starting their life over under an alias and living off the life insurance money. Most people have enough sense to know that it’s too ridiculous an idea for it to ever work. Then there’s Raymond Roth of Massapequa, who Nassau authorities said tried to do just that after allegedly cleaning out his wife’s bank account, putting his house up for sale and faking his own drowning at Jones Beach in August. He later turned up in Florida, sped back to LI when the alleged plot unraveled and turned himself in after a stop at the psych ward. He pleaded not guilty, along with his kid who’s accused of helping him. His wife’s filed for divorce.