Joseph Anthony Rice; Josephine County Commissioner candidate, phony wounded veteran

Last year, we talked a little bit about this Joe Rice fellow. He is an Oathkeeper, in fact he’s the head honcho of the Josephine County, Oregon chapter. My first contact with him was when he sent me a bunch of irrelevant and possibly forged documents in order defend Daryld “Gil” Gilbertson in the days before the election in 2014 when it looked like our post about him would defeat him in an election for county sheriff. Of course, it did.

I asked the nameless sender of that email to identify himself, so I could get a FOIA done on him and of course, he ceased contact. A Google search of the email address led me to Rice – so true to my word, I did a FOIA on Rice. In my search for Rice, I found that he had been listed on the old POW Network site as a liar about his military service. He had claimed that he was a POW of Saddam Hussein when he was shot down twice in the first Gulf War.

I found a military bio that he wrote in the 90s (the internet is forever, by the way);

He claims that he was deployed to Desert Storm, except that he’d been out of the military for three years when Desert Storm happened, so, no service medals for Desert Storm, no Purple Hearts, no POW Medal.

I’ve been told that he used to display POW license plates on his vehicle. Oregon requires a DD214 for both POW and Purple Heart plates;

Well, I was reminded about Rice today when The Guardian did a glowing piece about him – he’s running for Josephine County Commissioner this year.

Joseph Rice’s manner is a long way from militia stereotypes. The Patriot Movement leader does not present as a crazed gun nut, nor as a blowhard white supremacist. He’s genial, folksy, and matter-of-fact in laying out his views. But talk to him for long enough, and time and again the Patriot Movement leader returns to what really drives him: land.

Rice is running for Josephine county commissioner in south-west Oregon, and believes that the federal government’s current role in land management is illegitimate and even tyrannical.

His campaign is well-advertised around the county and appears well-organised. His growing experience in organising Patriot groups and community watch organisations has polished his skills in retail politics. He’s clearly done a lot of work to make himself politically palatable to conservative rural voters.

Yeah, I hope the author, Jason Wilson, an Australian living in Josephine County, according to his bio, didn’t drool too much during the tongue-bath he gave Rice.

Since we wrote about him last year, Rice has been involved in a protest at Sugar Pine Mine in Oregon which was similar to the Malheur occupation earlier this year, in which he also had a hand. For Wilson to say that “Rice’s manner is a long way from militia stereotypes” is to ignore his involvement in all of the militia activities in that area over the last year.

Before that, he made a name for himself by being involved in a crash in August, 2008, of a Sikorsky S-61N tail number N725JH (also known as IRON44) owned by Carson Helicopter, Inc., Rice’s employer for three years which, oddly enough, isn’t listed on his LinkedIn profile.

That crash in Oregon killed a pilot, a Forest Service safety inspector and seven firefighters. It was alleged, but not proven, that Rice, Carson’s Director of Operations, had altered the power chart for that aircraft, causing the crew to miscalculate the weight capability of the helicopter and leading directly to the crash. Three people went to jail for that miscalculation, and I guess that was enough to satisfy the federal prosecutors so they stopped the investigation before they checked to see who had replaced the chart in Carson’s computer. It’s also been rumored that Rice turned state’s evidence in the IRON44 investigation to avoid prosecution. One of the folks who went to jail, Steve Metheny, Vice President of the CHI’s west coast office Grants Pass, Oregon, seemed convinced that it was Rice’s fault in statements to investigators.

Rice was fired by Carson before the accident because he falsified a marriage license to Carson and it looks like he wanted revenge for the firing – it was Steve Metheny who fired him. That’s in keeping with Rice’s character.

In July 2012, the FAA fined Rice’s company, Warthog Aviation, LLC $50,000 for falsifying records that he filed with the government agency;

So, it’s not hard to believe that there’s a forged DD214 out there – falsifying records seems to be Rice’s favorite thing.

If I were a voter in Josephine County, Oregon, I’d certainly be more cautious about voting for Rice as County Commissioner. There are a lot of rumors flying around the county about him and his illegal activities, none of which I’d feel comfortable printing here, but folks should ask their neighbors about Rice before they vote in his favor.

Category: Phony soldiers, Valor Vultures