Fake veteran gets 5-month sentenceMan claimed to have helped kill civilians in IraqBy MIKE BARBER
P-I REPORTER
Jesse MacBeth never was an Army Ranger, much less a corporal, never received a Purple Heart for wounds inflicted by a foreign foe, and neither saw nor participated in war crimes with fellow U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, claims for which he became a poster boy for the anti-war movement.
So, there was likely no way the 23-year-old Tacoma man suffered post-traumatic stress disorder from the horrors of war and other injuries.
MacBeth was sentenced Friday to five months in jail and three years' probation for falsifying a Department of Veterans Affairs claim and an Army discharge record.
At a sentencing hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik on Friday, MacBeth's federal public defender, Jay Stansell, said that if MacBeth didn't have PTSD from a war, he had mental health problems and grew up in a harsh environment, homeless on the streets, surviving by seizing whatever angle or positive feedback he could get.
"I know he lived a war as a child," Stansell said.
Lasnik, weighing a standard sentencing range of between two and eight months for falsifying a VA claim and an Army discharge record, also ordered MacBeth to seek help for mental health problems, especially as they related to committing domestic violence.
MacBeth's is the latest case to be sentenced under "Operation Stolen Valor," which uses the new Stolen Valor Act to go after people posing as veterans, who often festoon themselves with awards and invent tales of long-term injuries, often to fraudulently acquire veterans benefits.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Friedman said the sentence is often linked to how much money a fake veteran bilks from the government, and MacBeth was caught before he took any.
Friedman said the government doesn't fully understand what MacBeth's motivations were. His actions included an effort to document PTSD, Friedman said, "but they were also symptomatic of something else."
Under a plea agreement in May, MacBeth admitted guilt to falsifying a claim for veterans compensation benefits and altering his military discharge record, which was issued after he washed out of Army boot camp after 44 days in 2003.
A thin man who sat quietly looking down through most of the hearing, MacBeth apologized for snookering anti-war groups with his claims of killing unarmed, helpless civilians in Iraq -- which were translated into Arabic and posted on the Internet -- and also to U.S. soldiers whom he defamed.
MacBeth said he felt bad for what he did.
"I'm sorry not only for lying about everything and discrediting anti-war groups, but also for defaming the real heroes, the soldiers out there sacrificing for their country," MacBeth said. "I was trying to pull a fast one, to make money to get off the streets."
MacBeth fooled peace groups and alternative media to become something of an anti-war star over the past four years.
He claimed he witnessed and participated in war crimes in Iraq with other Rangers, slaughtering hundreds of unarmed men, women and children.
In a widely distributed Internet video translated into Arabic, Macbeth said. "We would burn their bodies ... hang their bodies from the rafters in the mosque."
Lasnik noted that the case operated in two arenas, one in the courtroom where he was sentenced specifically for the crime of falsifying records, and another "in the blogosphere and elsewhere where he became a symbol."
"Too many people with a political agenda grabbed ahold of Mr. MacBeth's story and ran with it because they wanted to believe it. Any sober look should have lead people to believe it was all a made-up rant," Lasnik said.
"They tried to make him a poster boy for their point of view, and I think that is outrageous," Lasnik said.
Yet, while MacBeth's actions embarrassed the anti-war movement, it cannot be argued, as other quarters of the blogosphere assert, "that all reports of abuse by Americans in Iraq are incorrect," Lasnik cautioned. The military justice system has brought to light and dealt with such reports, he said.
Operation Stolen Valor is a year-old federal law enforcement effort that has resulted in a dozen cases under investigation in the Pacific Northwest, with fraud totals of more than $1.4 million. Eight cases have been filed and are in various stages of prosecution.
The act allows authorities to pursue phonies they previously could not touch. In the past, authorities rarely could act unless they caught someone wearing an award.
"As a Vietnam veteran and the father of a decorated Army officer currently serving, I feel very keenly the damage done by Jesse Macbeth and these other fakes," U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/332642_fakevet22.html
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