Our partners at Military Phonies send us their work on our daily phony SEAL, Frederick Ferguson. He has all of the shirts and even a tattoo, so you know he must be legit;
It turns out that he was aboard the USS Detroit when it ran aground as it entered port at Hampton Roads in 1981. None of the crew were injured nor was the ship damaged, but the Captain lost his job.
Ferguson had no SEAL Training and he left the Navy after 3 years as a seaman Apprentice (E-2), so he was a real fast burner.
Last month Michael Estes was arrested when he attempted to bomb the Asheville, North Carolina Airport so that he could “fight a war on US soil”. We discussed him at this link. He was out of jail after serving seven days of a 10-21 month sentence for an assault beef earlier this year when he planted his Claymore mine-like bomb in the airport. According to Heavy, on his Facebook page he had claimed to a be “retired military” and that he left the service in 2014;
That’s not exactly true – he was in the Marine Corps for a year and a month, ending in 2002. I suspect that he was AWOL and a deserter, because the discharge says that his one year of service occurred between August 1999 and February 2002 – during a two-and-a-half year span of time indicating “bad time”. He also only accrued 3 months in his primary occupational specialty during that period.
The discharge also says that he has 3 years and nine months of prior active service. We’re waiting for his FOIA from the Navy, so that’s probably where he served. With or without the Navy FOIA, he wasn’t on active duty until 2014, and he certainly didn’t retire from the military.
I’m sure neither the Navy nor the Marine Corps taught him to build a bomb, nor did the services influence him to declare his own personal war on the United States. He looks as if his problems followed him into the Marines and followed him out. Estes had no deployments, so he can’t blame his wartime service – it looks like he went AWOL when the war started.
Our partners at Military Phonies share their research on this George Frederick Lane fellow who claims to be a former member of the elite Marine Corps’ Force Recon unit in Vietnam on his Linked In profile. He also claims to be a Marine Corps officer;
He was indeed in Vietnam from December 1966 until February 1968, but he was assigned to a Military Police unit, the 1st Military Police Battalion in Da Nang. He was trained in Electronic Counter Measures. He also earned two Purple Heart Medals and a Navy Achievement Medal with a Valor device. It looks like he as shot in his legs twice.
His FOIA says that he left the service as a Sergeant, not an officer like he claims on his resume. He also wears a SEAL Trident in the top picture – there’s no SEAL training in his records, either.
We wrote about Anthony Gambino last year when he was arrested for pretending to be a wounded Marine in New Mexico. Soon after I first wrote about him, the threats started, yes, lawyer threats. He was going to sue me for republishing news reports. Dave Hardin wrote about those threats earlier this year.
This is a letter to inform you that I will be obtaining your information and sueing for Libel. We have already took pictures of your artical ,comments, etc. One must reseach things before printing damaging and false information. KRQE is in the same situation. Gambino Security Corporation was not a fraud and media cost millions of damage. Thank you for your time and i hope in your future your organization is more careful as libel is a crime. Sincerely, Anthony Gambino
Here’s part of the complaint against him;
One of our ninjas send us a link to the news that Mr Gambino was sentenced last week for stolen valor and some firearms charges;
A Farmington man was sentenced to six months in a federal prison after he pleaded guilty to claiming to be a combat veteran who earned medals and ribbons, including a Purple Heart and being a felon in possession of firearms.
Anthony Gambino, 45, was sentenced Thursday in Albuquerque federal court and will have three years of supervised release after completing his prison term, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
He was indicted on May 25, 2016, with charges of making false representations about receiving military medals and decorations along with being a felon in possession of firearms.
He had actually been in the Marine Corps, sort of, he had enlisted using his brother’s name because he was a felon who couldn’t enlist with his own name. The Marine Corps divested themselves of his presence after eight months.
Our partners at Military Phonies send us their work on this fellow Roberto McKittrick. He claims to be a SEAL from BUD/S class 234. From what I was told by some old Vietnam-era SEALs, the silver Tridents were only used briefly and they designated enlisted SEALs, but that was decades ago, when they had to buy their own Tridents.
Anyway, that’s what I was told during another investigation.
But, Mr McKittrick announces on Facebook that he’s off to Syria;
Until he gets shot in Ramadi, and sent to a hospital in Milwaukee – I guess all fake war casualties go there.
The upshot is that the Navy says “Who?”
According to 10News, some veterans in downtown San Diego approached Marc Dominguez and told him that his uniform was incorrect.
However, when the men pointed out the uniform issue, the uniformed man — later identified by police as 42-year-old Marc Dominguez — reportedly became angry, brandished a knife and threatened the two men.
“The guy got extremely hostile and pulled out his knife twice on us. We told him, ‘If you’re going to threaten us, come out here and threaten us like a man,’” said Army veteran Edward Villalobos, whose friend is active duty.
The confrontation turned violent, and police said Villalobos’ friend was stabbed multiple times before others intervened.
ABC7 says that the injured veteran grabbed Dominguez by the throat before he was stabbed.
The stabbing victim’s injuries are not serious, according to ABC7.
Another veteran, Army Staff Sgt. Robert Paladino, told the news folks that he had seen Dominguez wearing the same incorrect uniform two weeks before the stabbing incident.
Police haven’t confirmed Dominguez’ military service, but he’s in custody. I’m guessing that he’s not a veteran since everything on his uniform is wrong, as few things as there are on the uniform. My guess is that he was just trolling for some free food. I wonder if there is a Golden Corral in the neighborhood.
It’s probably not a good idea to confront someone who is going to get all stabby. Dominguez reportedly brandished his knife a few times before he actually employed it. The first time he showed the knife would have been when I would have attracted the attention of the police instead of continuing the confrontation. Stolen Valor is not a capital offense.
The folks at Military Phonies send us their work on this Victor Allen Yager who is your daily phony SEAL’
Then he got busted and still couldn’t stop lying;
He was drunk, that’s why he pretended to be a SEAL. He got drunk, went to the military surplus store, bought the pin on Trident, bought the cloth Trident and took it to the little sewing shop, waited for them to sew it on and the drove home, still drunk, took pictures, uploaded the pics to Facebook, and then claimed that he was a SEAL.
Yeah, he spent seven months in the Navy in 1972-1973, but apparently he gets drunk enough to think he was a SEAL in Vietnam.
The most arrestable valor thief, Kyle Barwan is packing his bags tonight. According to Polk County Sheriff’s Department, he’s being transferred to State Prison from the county hoosegow;
The Big House. The Gray Bar Hotel. Enjoy, Kyle. Next time a judge gives you a break, take advantage of it.
Thanks to Frank for the update.