Category: Stolen Valor Act

Last month, after Republican Congressman Mo Brooks helped wounded congressmen at that baseball practice in Alexandria, retired Army Colonel John Reitzell of Huntsville bestowed a miniature Combat Infantryman Badge on Brooks, according to Alabama’s AL Online ;

Reitzell told AL.com that he pinned the badge on Brooks’ lapel at a senate candidate forum at the Huntsville Botanical Garden on June 20.

“I have this little lapel pin I want to pin on you as a reminder to all of us that there are very few lengths you will not go to to protect us,” Reitzell said he told Brooks.

Reitzell served 28 years in the Army, reaching the rank of colonel. He was twice injured in the Vietnam War and is a member of the Madison County Hall of Heroes.

So, Clayton Hinchman, an Iraq veteran who sacrificed a leg in the Global War On Terror who is planning on running against Brooks in the midterm elections next year decided to make the CIB a stolen valor issue;

Clayton Hinchman, a veteran of the war in Iraq who lost a leg while on a nighttime raid to captured or kill Al Qaeda, issued the press release Monday night. The press release said Hinchman was “expressing his outrage” at Brooks for wearing the pin.

“As someone who has seen brave men and women hurt in combat when answering the bold call to go to serve their country in the military, I understand the frustration of the many veterans who have come to my campaign upset to see their congressman wearing a badge he was not awarded,” Hinchman said in the press release.

Colonel Reitzell defends Brooks saying that the CIB is only a replica and that he pinned it on Brooks right lapel, instead of the left, to notify everyone that Brooks wasn’t claiming to have earned it.

Well, as someone who earned a CIB, and as someone who wears the miniature CIB on my lapel when I’m dressed in business wear, I kind of agree with Hinchman – Brooks should take it off. Reitzell can give anything he wants to anyone he wants, but when Brook wore it after the presentation, he stepped outside the bounds of acceptable protocol. I don’t like “my” CIB being used as a political statement, either, Mr Hinchman.

Hinchman said Tuesday afternoon that he stood behind the press release. He said supporters said they wanted Brooks charged with stolen valor.

I doubt Mr Hinchman would press as hard to have Dick Blumenthal charged with stolen valor for his claims that he served in Vietnam.

The CIB is actually one of the military accouterments covered by the Stolen Valor Act of 2013 if used for some sort of “tangible benefit”.

According to The Daily Item, Pennsylvania’s governor, Tom Wolf, signed the state’s Stolen Valor Act into law this week;

John Getz, state adjutant of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of Pennsylvania, said the legislation’s title is apt and the legislation is warranted to punish impersonators who try to benefit from pretending to be a veteran.

“I think they are criminals because they are stealing the valor of people who have done these deeds,” he said.

Previously, lying about military service was not illegal in Pennsylvania.

The legislation makes it a third-degree misdemeanor for a person to falsely claim to be a veteran in order to commit fraud, get a job or get elected to public office. It carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. The penalty is increased to up to two years in jail and $5,000 fine if the person falsely claims to have received medals, including the Congressional Medal of Honor, a Silver Star or Purple Heart.

The states with Stolen Valor Acts have been more successful fighting the scourge of lying about military service than states which rely solely on federal enforcement. We’ve seen more prosecutions by state enforcement in recent years.

Not mentioned in the article is the hard work put towards that goal by Matt Ott, who made the Stolen Valor Act in Pennsylvania his pet peeve when he was deceived by Nate Fornwalt three years ago. Matt, the son of two veterans, marched through the halls of the state legislature shaking hands and fighting for this bill. Thanks, Matt.

You might remember Robert Guidi who we first wrote about in December, 2015. He pretended to be a Ranger and Special Forces soldier in Vietnam. He claimed that he had been a POW for nine months, also that he had earned two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star and he used those stories to gain financially to the tune of tens-of-thousands-of-dollars. He had actually been a postal clerk in Vietnam and hadn’t been wounded or captured. Well, he admitted his guilt in court yesterday. From the Daily Record;

Robert Guidi pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Paul Armstrong in Morristown to two counts of theft by deception and one count of violating the state’s Stolen Valor Act by purposely deceiving the Wounded Warriors in Action Foundation and the Morris County Veterans Service Office about his military career so that he could receive goods and benefits.

Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Rappa has recommended that Guidi be sentenced on May 19 to three years in prison and repay the North American Deck and Railing Association the $31,919 it paid for labor and materials to build a deck on his home. Guidi already has returned the hunting bow he received in appreciation of what turned out to be a false military record.

[…]

After his arrest in January 2016, Guidi spent more than eight months in the Morris County jail until he was released while the charges were pending. Besides making $31,919 in restitution, he also will have to pay a $1,000 fine for violating the Stolen Valor Act.

The New Jersey Stolen Valor Act was signed by the governor just two months before we busted Guidi.

The “Stolen Valor Act” makes unauthorized use of military uniforms, medals, or insignias to obtain benefit a third-degree crime with a mandatory $1,000 fine and a three-to-five year prison term.

[…]

Any fines collected under [the Stolen Valor Act] will be dedicated to the Military Dependents Scholarship Fund, which [Governor Chris] Christie also signed into law on Monday. The fund will provide college scholarships to the spouses and children of those killed, missing in action or disabled in Operation Noble Eagle, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation New Dawn.

I hope this puts all of those phonies in New Jersey on notice.

Jeffrey G. Alajajian was arrested in Leominster, Massachusetts for panhandling with a sign that read “Homeless Veteran, Anything Helps” according to the Sentinel & Enterprise.

“While I can’t be completely certain, this may be the first person in the state charged with stolen valor,” said police Lt. Michael Ciccolini about the arrest of Jeffrey G. Alajajian, 30.

The stolen valor charge resulted from the sign Alajajian was holding while begging for money that identified him as a veteran.

Ciccolini said that while Alajajian was being booked, he admitted that he wasn’t a veteran.

[…]

Alajajian in the past three years has been charged with larceny over $250 and shoplifting in Leominster. In 2010, he was charged in Ayer with attempted murder for allegedly attempting to strangle his girlfriend, and in 2011 he was charged in Ayer with child abuse for allegedly injuring his girlfriend’s 22-month-old son.

Lucky sends us a link to BBC which reports that members of the UK’s parliament have introduced legislation that would make wearing military awards you didn’t earn punishable by a £5,000 ($6238.57) fine or prison;

“People who have served their country in genuinely dangerous environments, then someone comes along and pretends that they are their equal – that causes a lot of offence,” he says. “When people see veterans it’s important that people have confidence their medals are legitimate.”

Internet vigilante groups with names like the Walter Mitty Hunters Club are dedicated to uncovering and shaming them, and these exposes are regularly picked up and given extra publicity by an indignant tabloid press.

The article goes on to describe some of the incidents involving “Walter Mittys” that were the impetus for the bill.

One well-publicised case involved Roger Day, who admitted he hadn’t earned the 17 medals – including awards for serving in World War II, the Military Medal and SAS badges – that he wore at a 2009 parade in Warwickshire.

In 2008, bus driver Jamie Barrett was spotted marching in Edinburgh with members of the Parachute Regiment who had served in the Falklands. He had bought his medals online. After he was exposed, Barrett said: “I’m basically a Walter Mitty type of person.”

And last year, Oxford’s town crier Anthony Church confessed to inventing a career in the armed forces. He had previously claimed he was a “regimental sergeant major” and had worn a Falklands medal.