News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Phony POW Busted Before Court

Date: April 11, 2001

"Man called back to court; POW groups say he lied

Judge to rehear drug dealer's case after claim of fraudulent record
By LISA SINK of the Journal Sentinel staff

Waukesha - A judge who gave a drug dealer credit for his self-reported POW status in Vietnam has ordered the man back into court after prisoner-of-war groups said Monday the man was a fraud.

"He lied to the judge; he lied to the attorney," said Mary Schantag, whose Missouri organization, POW Network, has Pentagon lists of POWs and MIAs.

"I hope he gets the full sentence they can possibly give him," she said.

After receiving faxes Monday from Schantag and from another organization that monitors POW claims, Circuit Judge Patrick Haughney scheduled a new Hearing April 18 for Ary Jones, 54.

Haughney sentenced Jones to four years in prison last week after listing Jones' character, military service and POW status as mitigating factors.

Jones, of Waukesha, could have been sentenced to more than 50 years in prison for delivering cocaine and heroin on several occasions last fall to an undercover Waukesha police officer. He lied to the judge. I hope he gets the full sentence they can possibly give him.

- Mary Schantag, whose organization, POW Network, monitors POW claims

The prosecutor sought a 10-year prison term. The defense asked for probation, county jail and drug treatment.

Defense attorney Daniel Grable said that Jones was held hostage in a POW camp in Vietnam for three months and 18 days before he escaped.

Grable told the judge that guards broke Jones' jaw, urinated on his food and terrorized him before he and others fled the camp.

He said that Jones told him that the escapees told each other that if anyone fell behind during their flight, the others would leave that person behind.

When it came time for Jones to speak in court, he didn't say anything about his service. He instead talked about how he had foolishly turned to drugs as a "sedative" to self-medicate his depression after his parents and others died.

He cried as his daughter - one of two valedictorians he and his longtime wife raised - said he was a good father who had been "ruined" by drugs.

Haughney contrasted the war on drugs with the Vietnam War, saying, "I'm sorry to see, sir, that you're a warrior on the wrong side of the drug war."

News story prompts inquiry But when the Journal Sentinel published a story about Jones' sentencing hearing last week, a Milwaukee-area resident called Mike McGrath, president of NAM-POWS in Colorado, McGrath said in an interview Monday.



McGrath and Schantag said they checked their lists, which come from Pentagon records and contacted the American Ex-POWS. There was no record of an Ary Jones.

"It's baloney," Schantag said.

McGrath said he knew every one of the 660 POWS of Vietnam by memory and began ticking off names alphabetically.

On Schantag's Web site, there was a Bobby Jones, who has been missing since Nov. 28, 1972, the date he flew an F-4D Phantom jet to Da Nang, South Vietnam.

There was a William Jones, whose remains were found Aug. 14, 1985, after he had been missing since a Jan. 5, 1968, plane accident in which he parachuted out.

But no Ary Jones.

Grable, Jones' attorney, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Story related to probation agent Karl Held, a state Department of Corrections supervisor, said that one of his probation agents interviewed Jones as part of the agent's presentence report to Haughney. Such reports include biographical history, including education, family background and military service.



Held said that Jones told the agent he was a POW, "and there was an escape, and he was wounded in action."

But Jones then told the agent he "didn't want to go any further, he did not want us to dig into his records," Held said. "(Jones) refused to sign a release of information to the Veterans Administration. It was his stated report that his military service not be a part of that (presentence) report."

Schantag said that the VA would be the wrong place to verify military service records; that office keeps only medical records.

Held said his office has not had to verify military service records in the recent past because defendants have not been veterans. "Most people haven't been in the service," Held said.

He said his agents do try to verify educational and treatment information supplied by defendants.

McGrath said that courts and the news media often fail to check veterans' claims. "It's just laziness," he said, citing Web sites that list POWs.

Assistant District Attorney William Roach said that the day after the sentencing, he received a telephone call from a man who said that Jones was a fraud.

"The information, if false, and I don't know if it is, won't bode too well for Mr. Jones," Roach said.

POW lies called disservice If Jones did lie about being a POW, "it does a disservice to those who have served, who have risked their lives," Roach said.



Schantag said her husband, Chuck, was a Marine wounded in Vietnam combat in 1968. McGrath, a retired Navy captain, said he was POW in Vietnam for five years and eight months.

Some POWS were hostages for five days, others for 20 years, McGrath said.

He and Schantag said they had exposed some 500 fraudulent military service and POW claims recently, including a retired Air Force sergeant who fooled the Air Force into honoring him falsely last year in Alaska.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge was the subject of a judicial commission complaint last July, claiming he had lied about his Vietnam service and purported Purple Heart, according to a San Francisco Chronicle story reprinted on Schantag's Web site.

"It is now a nationwide epidemic," Schantag said of false claims. "Our country is just so absolutely desperate for heroes. It has become very popular to be a Vietnam vet."


Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on April 10, 2001"