TACOMA – A Joyce man pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to pretending he held military honors he didn’t earn.
Roy J. Scott, 71, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to unlawfully wearing military medals and to using and possessing forged or altered military discharge papers.
Scott used his falsified discharge papers to join a local veterans group and to get from the Department of Veterans Affairs almost $22,000 in compensation and medical coverage, according to court documents.
On Friday, he paid back the VA with a check, according to KING-TV.
Phone calls to Scott’s home and to Thomas Olmstead, his Poulsbo attorney, were not returned on Friday or Saturday.
Scott is slated to be sentenced on Nov. 30.
Local members of the Marine Corps League suspected that Scott’s stories about fighting in the Korean War were false.
“His remembrance of Korea was a little strange in what he was reciting,” said Terry Roth, a Korean War veteran living in Port Angeles.
“A quick check showed he would have been 14 [during the war],” Roth said.
“When you’re telling sea stories to guys that were there, it’s easy to pick up a fraud.”
Roth, along with two other Port Angeles Korean War veterans – Don Clayton and Robert Mingram – raised their concerns about Scott to the local commandant of the Marine Corps League, Dan Abbott of Diamond Point, in June 2006.
Abbott, who is also the Judge Advocate General of the state branch of the Marine Corps League, called FBI Agent Tom Cottone, who began its investigation.
After simultaneous investigations by the state Marine Corps League and the FBI, Scott’s membership in the Marine Corps League was revoked and he was charged on Aug. 24 in federal court.
