A man in the Florida Keys told police he's Sam Elliott -- the mustached man of cinema fame -- and that he just won millions playing the lottery. The cops, on the other hand, say that he's 62-year-old Ira Bershatsky and that he just stole a boat off the side of the highway.
Monroe County Sheriff's Deputy Becky Herrin says people called police because someone had just run his truck into a pump at a gas station on U.S. 1.
That's when deputies found Bershatsky cruising down the highway with his truck smoking and one of his tires flat, with a suspicious-looking boat in tow and a for-sale sign attached.
Herrin says Bershatsky, from Boca Raton, told cops not only that he was Hollywood's Sam Elliott but that he was a stunt double in Rocky and was heading to California this week to shoot a film with "De Niro."
Here are some comparison shots to visualize Bershatsky's claims:
Police say he also mentioned he had just won $27 million playing the lottery, which the cops didn't quite think was true either.
The cops decided to call up the number on the boat's for-sale sign, and a Key Largo man told them it was his boat -- a 2000 Pro-Line -- and it had just been stolen off the side of the highway.
Bershatsky was booked into jail for a few things, including grand theft for the boat incident as well as leaving the scene of a crash, driving on a rim, not properly securing the boat, and driving on the wrong side of the highway.
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