Wayne Simmons, Navy and CIA pretender pleads guilty to fraud

Someone sent us a link to the news that Wayne Simmons, the Fox News commentator who claimed that the CIA recruited him from the Navy decades ago, pleaded guilty to fraud in a courtroom the other day;

“Wayne Simmons is a convicted felon with no military or intelligence experience,” said Dana J. Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. “Simmons admitted he attempted to con his way into a position where he would have been called on to give real intelligence advice in a war zone. His fraud cost the government money, could have put American lives at risk, and was an insult to the real men and women of the intelligence community who provide tireless service to this country. This case is a prime example of this office’s ongoing commitment to vigorously prosecute government fraud and threats to national security.”

“Mr. Simmons lied about his criminal history and CIA employment in order to fraudulently obtain government contracts, and separately, defrauded a victim through a phony real estate investment deal,” said Paul M. Abbate, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “With these criminal actions, Mr. Simmons abused the trust of others, both in and outside of government, for his own personal financial gain. I commend the work of the talented FBI personnel and prosecutors who vigorously pursued this case and brought about today’s guilty plea.”

Somehow, he’d convinced the Army of his phony creds in 2008 and 2010 and deployed to the war against terror. Then he defrauded a woman of about $125,000 and he was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm by a felon because of two or three other convictions that the government hadn’t noticed when they hired him to go to Afghanistan, the putz. He’s looking at decades in federal prison, although, I doubt he’ll get it. He’s 62 years old.

You know, I might forgive the Army for believing his CIA creds, but the Navy? All they had to do was send an email down the hall to check on that, FFS.

The Washington Post says that the language that Simmons used in his statement to the court he still doesn’t admit that he lied;

Importantly, though, Simmons’s written agreement with prosecutors does not include language in which he says outright that he lied about a clandestine past. He conceded only that the government “would prove at trial” that he never worked for the CIA.

In court, Simmons admitted he had lied on federal forms when he claimed he had not previously been convicted of a felony, had never filed for bankruptcy and had held a top-secret security clearance. He said he did so to help get a government job overseas.

“I believed then and I believe now that my skill sets could be used in Afghanistan to fight the global war on terror,” he said.

William B. Cummings, Simmons’s attorney, said afterward, “In no way has Mr. Simmons disavowed his relationship with the CIA” and suggested that the agency might now be abandoning him.

He’ll be back.

Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures