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The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 enhances penalties for making false claims in regard to personal medals awarded for combat action and valor, such as the Purple Heart, Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, Silver Star, or Congressional Medal of Honor. This law allows law enforcement officials to prosecute individuals who falsely claim to be recipients of these awards, and perpetrators may receive a sentence of up to 1 year/$100,000 fine as a result.

April 16th: O-8 Imposter Sentenced: Daniel Vincent Weber was sentenced yesterday to three years probation, ordered to pay a $500 fine, and perform 240 hours of community service after pleading guilty earlier this year to a misdemeanor charge of making false claims about military decorations.  Weber achieved the rank of staff sergeant while serving in the Marine Corps from 1958 to 1967, but he admitted to presenting himself as a retired Marine major general, to include wearing a full dress uniform with medals to a VFW Post celebration in Ramona, Calif., last year.

STOLEN VALOR

Area man did not receive Medal of Honor

By JOSH FAHLSING

Tribune Community Editor

            CASEVILLE — What began as a simple Memorial Day speaking engagement at Port Elizabeth Marina and Yacht Club turned into the unraveling of a longtime deception for one Caseville man who misrepresented himself as a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.

            A photograph of William Kovick, 76, of Caseville, appeared on the front page of the Huron Daily Tribune May 31. In the photograph, taken by Tribune freelance writer and photographer Kate Finneren, Kovick is pictured wearing what appears to be a Congressional Medal of Honor. According to information provided the day of Kovick's appearance, Kovick was a Medal of Honor recipient and a "highly decorated Chief Warrant Officer."

            Shortly after the photograph appeared in the newspaper, questions arose regarding the authenticity of Kovick’s medal when the Tribune was contacted by Colorado resident Doug Sterner. Sterner told the newspaper Kovick was not a Medal of Honor recipient. Tribune searches of several online databases of Medal of Honor recipients did not turn up Kovick’s name. Soon the Tribune was able to confirm through the FBI, Congressional Medal of Honor Society and homeofheroes.com, a website devoted to the Congressional Medal of Honor operated by the military veteran Sterner, that Kovick was not a Medal of Honor recipient.

            Sterner contacted Special Agent Thomas Cottone Jr. of the FBI’s Newark, N.J. Division in West Patterson, N.J., and Cottone contacted FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Walter H. Reynolds at the FBI’s Bay City office. Reynolds assigned the case to Special Agent Steve Flattery, who immediately began an investigation.

            It is against the law to wear, sell or manufacture valor awards without permission. Penalties include up to a year in jail and a $100,000 fine for individuals and $200,000 for corporations for wearing, selling or manufacturing the Medal of Honor illegally.

                        “The penalties for the Medal of Honor (imposters) are crystal clear,” Cottone said. “The intent of the federal law, and what the FBI is trying to do here, is to maintain the integrity of all the military awards and medals because people in our military — particularly our veterans — pay such a high price. Some pay with their lives. The very least the FBI can do for those people is to protect those medals.

            "They are not jewelry, every one of them means something. When we get an aggravated case, where someone is taking credit for something they didn’t do, they’re literally stealing the act from someone who did.”

            By this time, the Tribune already had begun its own inquiry, which turned up information concerning prior instances from 1996 and 2000 when Kovick had been investigated for medal fraud. Flattery confirmed Kovick was investigated in 1996, but no proof of his possession of the medal existed, and he told agents he did not have one. The query was dropped, but almost was renewed in 2000 when information arose again that Kovick possessed a medal. At that time, Flattery said, Kovick’s wife had just passed away, and Kovick himself was in poor health. With no evidence of his possession of the medal, the FBI did not proceed further.

            The photograph that appeared on the front page of the Tribune would ensure that this investigation would be different. Flattery took the photograph and other results of his investigation to the Office of the U.S. Attorney in Detroit. Prosecutors there chose not to issue an arrest warrant for Kovick, but Flattery was cleared to confront Kovick and recover the medal.

            A telephone call seeking comment from the U.S. Attorney's office Thursday was not returned.

            Thursday, Flattery and Caseville Police Chief Jamie Learman knocked on Kovick’s door and asked to see the Medal of Honor.

            “I spoke with the gentleman and confronted him about the issue. I showed him the photograph, and explained it was illegal to wear a Medal of Honor you did not earn,” Flattery said. “I asked for the contraband items, and he gave them to me. I could tell he was reluctant at first. Denial is usually the first reaction, and he was embarrassed. The main thing is, we got it, and he’s not going to do it anymore.”

            Reynolds said Kovick’s age could have played a role in the decision not to arrest him.

            “There are a variety of factors that determine whether they go to jail on the day of contact,” Reynolds said. “One factor in this one is we’re dealing with an elderly man. That factor played into the decision not to arrest him. Our priority was to get the medal. We knew he was not a Medal of Honor recipient, and in (Thursday’s) contact the Medal was recovered without incident.”

            Now that the FBI is in possession of the medal, a final report will be sent to the U.S. Attorney’s office for a final decision on whether or not to charge Kovick with a crime.

            “The decision is solely theirs,” Reynolds said.

            Kovick told the Tribune Friday he actually served in the United States Navy from October 1944 to February 1946, and from 1950 to 1953. He said the only medals he earned during that time were an Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal from World War II, and a United Nations Korean Medal from the Korean War.

            Those two medals were awarded to any serviceman active in those theaters between certain dates.

            Kovick would not confirm information obtained by the Tribune that he also possessed a bogus Navy Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He appeared to be wearing each of these medals in the Memorial Day picture, but said the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the United Nations Korean Medal were the only medals he actually earned. Reynolds has confirmed agents did indeed seize "several other unearned medals he wasn't entitled to" while at Kovick's residence.

            Both Kovick and Flattery said the FBI Thursday mainly was interested in the bogus Medal of Honor. Kovick said he wore the unearned medal because his late wife was especially proud of what she thought was her husband’s long and distinguished military service.

            “We’d been married so many years, and she was always proud of me, so I embellished my military career to be more than it was,” Kovick said.

            Kovick said he has been “living a lie” for quite a while.

            “I’m really sorry for misrepresenting myself, and I apologize to all survivors and veterans I may have hurt,” Kovick said Friday. “I apologize to my family and all the veterans in the state of Michigan, and I ask most humbly that they forgive me.”

            Sterner said the first Medal of Honor Awards were presented to six men in 1863. Since then, only 3,461 have been awarded. It is the highest possible award a soldier can earn, given only for “valor above and beyond the call of duty.”

            “So high is its significance, General George Patton, who never received one, said, ‘I’d sell my immortal soul for that medal,’” Sterner said. “President Harry Truman, a combat veteran of World War I, presented Medals of Honor to heroes of two wars, WWII and Korea. He usually remarked, as he hung the Medal of Honor around a soldier’s neck, ‘I would rather have this medal than be president.’”

            There currently are only 122 living Medal of Honor recipients. Cottone said most of the medals, in fact, are awarded posthumously.

            “There hasn’t been a Medal of Honor awarded to a living recipient since Vietnam,” Cottone said. “To be awarded that medal and to live to tell about it is a rare event. The requirements are so difficult. The act itself has to be above and beyond the call of duty. (It has to be an act) that if the person didn’t do the act, they couldn’t be criticized for not doing it. It has to be witnessed by two people, thoroughly documented and well-investigated.”

            Josh Fahlsing •               (989) 269-6461         (989) 269-6461 • jfahlsing@hearstnp.com

Tracking down medal fraud

By JOSH FAHLSING

Tribune Community Editor

            BAD AXE — Special Agent Tom Cottone Jr. has seen his share of egregious acts during his time with the FBI.

            Assigned to a violent crimes task force out of the FBI's Newark, N.J. Division in West Patterson, N.J., Cottone has worked bank robberies, kidnappings and terrorism-related investigations among his many cases.

            A decade ago, a simple phone call turned Cottone onto an epidemic of medal fraud that now takes its place among the most despicable acts Cottone investigates.

            "It started 10 years ago when a case was referred to me about medals being sold at a gun show a mile from my office," Cottone said. "I went to the gun show and an individual sold me two Medals of Honor. Federal law says no one can wear, manufacture or sell the Medal of Honor without authorization."

            So Cottone was on the case, but it wasn't until he called the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in South Carolina that he began to realize the scope of such medal abuse.

            "I had to verify the medals were real, so I called the Medal of Honor Society," Cottone said. "I told them I had these two medals, and that's when they just about yelled through the phone, 'It's about time!'"

            Through the society, Cottone found out bogus military medals were being sold all over the country. He was put into contact with retired Marine Col. Mitchell Paige, himself a Medal of Honor recipient, who already was at work tracking down imposters.

            "They said there's guys out there wearing the Medal of Honor who never earned it, and Col. Paige had been going after these guys for 40 years," Cottone recalled. "I called Paige, and from the first phone call we became best friends and partners thereafter."

            Cottone was able to find out the medals he had purchased were real, and he and Paige continued to track down imposters and seize medals. Cottone was disturbed, though, that so many medals were out there. He began to wonder where they were coming from, and finally contacted the Pentagon in an effort to find out. Cottone was disturbed to find out the medals were not produced by the U.S. Mint, as he had assumed, but instead were considered low-bid government items manufactured by a company called HLI Lordship Industries out of Long Island.

            "They'd been doing it since the ’60s," Cottone said. "I went there and asked them to show me how they made them. It turns out they were illegally manufacturing and selling them around the country — hundreds and hundreds of them."

            The statute of limitations only allowed the company to be held responsible for the 300 medals it admitted to manufacturing in the three years prior to Cottone's visit to the factory. In 1996, the company entered a corporate guilty plea in U.S. District Court, admitting to the manufacture and sale of 300 medals. The company sold the medals for $75 each, and besides facing the maximum fine allowed under federal sentencing guidelines, agreed to pay the government back the $22,500 it made selling the fake medals. Also, the company was prohibited from any government contract for a period of 15 years.

            The conviction wouldn't put an end to medal fraud, though, as the medals on the streets continued to change hands through gun shows, military trade shows and even the Internet auction site eBay.

            "These Medal of Honor imposters are still out there," Cottone said. "Every medal I have recovered has come from that company. Because of what that company did, there are more potential imposters out there than recipients."

            There currently are just 122 living Medal of Honor recipients in the United States, less than half of the number of illegal medals HLI Lordship Industries admitted to manufacturing, and far less than the actual number of fake medals produced by the company.

            "It would be many, many more times the 300, whatever that is," Cottone said.

            Cottone said he probably has recovered from 30 to 40 medals so far, but he doesn't keep an exact count.

            The number of fake medals out there increases the significance of the investigations undertaken by agents like Cottone, and, locally Special Agent Steve Flattery.

            "I would venture to say the great majority of people in this country today know somebody in the military, or have a relative in their family who at some point in time was in the military," Cottone said. "The very least the FBI can do for these people is to protect those medals. They are not jewelry meant to be worn to impress people."

            And his work has not gone unnoticed. In 2002 Cottone was made an honorary Marine by the Marine Corps Commandant in a formal ceremony in Quantico, Va. It is the highest honor the Marines can bestow upon a non-military person.

            In a bizarre twist of events, Cottone actually would exemplify the work he was being honored for at the ceremony. Another man, Navy Captain Roger D. Edwards, also was present that day to receive the same honor as Cottone. As Cottone was introduced to Edwards he noticed the remarkable number of medals Edwards was wearing.

            "He had ribbon bars from shoulder to belt," Cottone said. "He had Silver Stars, multiple Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars and numerous, numerous combat awards."

            After the ceremony, a curious Cottone pulled Edwards' personnel file and discovered Edwards wore 21 unearned medals to the ceremony.

            "He faked them all. He had no Purple Heart, nothing," Cottone said. "He was court-martialed last summer and sentenced to the brig as a Navy captain. It's extremely rare for somebody at that rank to receive a court martial, and at the end receive an orange jumpsuit with numbers."

            As sickening as it was to Cottone to bust an imposter at the award ceremony, it wouldn't compare to an incident that took place a few months later. Cottone, attending the funeral of a Marine killed in Iraq, noticed a Marine captain in full dress uniform sitting with the parents of the soldier who was killed. When the funeral procession moved outside of the church, the Marine Corps Hymn began playing.

            "Any Marine who knows anything immediately snaps to attention (when the hymn is played)," Cottone said. "This guy was standing there like he was waiting for a bus."

            Cottone identified himself and asked the man if he would be willing to talk about his military service. The man told Cottone he had earned the Navy Cross during one of his four tours in Vietnam.

            "This is the thing with imposters as opposed to the real guys," Cottone said, "many of the real guys don't want to talk about it. These imposters will talk to anybody who will listen to them."

            Cottone asked the man if he ever actually served in the military at all, and the man stammered before shaking his head to indicate he hadn't.

            Another imposter busted.

            "These are some of the people that do these things," Cottone said. "This has been going on probably since medals were first a part of the military. I'm sure every country that has a military has military imposters."

            But Cottone and agents like him now have stepped up to ensure imposters don't sully the memory and steal the valor of the men and women who have earned their awards through dedicated service.

            "If anybody can just start buying medals and pinning them on, the real ones wouldn't mean a thing. I'm very proud to be able to do this," Cottone said. "That's the significance and the sensitivity of this whole investigation, and we'll continue to do it. Obviously we can't investigate, arrest and prosecute everybody, but you don't want to be the one who his caught and prosecuted."

            Josh Fahlsing •               (989) 269-6461         (989) 269-6461 • jfahlsing@hearstnp.com