American Greed Podcast: Stolen Valor Scam | CNBC Prime

This is the American Greed Podcast brought to you by CNBC. I'm Stacy Keach in this episode of American

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. Captain Darrell Ride has a purple heart and he's not afraid to show it. Darrell used his purple heart, flaunted it, and used it as a weapon like a wounded warrior. Ride collects more than $700,000 in government benefits until an undercover investigation unravels this hero's story. 99.9% of those things are not true. That didn't happen. I think he enjoyed getting free money. We started referring to this as the Purple Heart

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mer case. Victims of rights. They are veterans who feel their sacrifices have been tarnished by their lies they have been robbed of their courage it is like a stab in the heart and twisting it deeper this is how it feels in 2005 the Iraq war continues with no end in sight Darrell in that moment an Idaho National Guard lieutenant is just one of the 140,000 American soldiers serving here, but he stands out.

The first thing you notice when you stand there is how incredibly tall it is. Yeah, I mean, this guy is in a hotel, yeah, but he's the tallest guy I've ever met. I once met in the army. The right job is to help turn the local Iraqis into a lean and mean fighting force. Basic tasks. Car. She taught me how to touch grenades, how to do anything and she started teaching them like, I mean, like a mini boot camp. Brad Arnie writes first. the sergeant works closely with him, we get along very well, you know he was good to the troops, he was good to the staff, he was good to me, you know, we used to give each other a hard time because he's a Seahawks fan and I'm a Viking. . fan, you know that kind of stuff and you know more other than that, I mean, yeah, he seemed like a good officer at the time, he was an intern with us and when the internship was ending, they deployed him.

Kathleen Simcoe is Wright's former boss. In Boise, Idaho, she and her coworkers are sorry to see the members of the National Guard leave, but they know it is their duty and they let him know that he is in their thoughts several times, the group pitches in and donates things for a package of help and we send them things. like Twizzlers and we ship them. I think the whole Cheers series and he really appreciated it and shared things with his unit, and so I did. I kept in touch with him. Television and junk food can help fill long periods of boredom, but amid the lulls there are flashes of danger.

The spring and summer of 2005 is one of the deadliest periods of the war. The time of the fugitive insurgents. , roadside IEDs and suicide bombings Iraq is kind of like Russian roulette, you know it's not like that when you're going to get hit so you'll always be something to worry about, you know, every day, the August 30, 2005. Darrell is standing next to Sergeant Ani speaking at 1:30 in the afternoon, the calm is pierced by a terrifying sound, we hear that he knows the whistle only partially and there is a second shortly after, so it was almost simultaneous and then you know boom boom, it's a rocket attack that hits his base, he will then report that rubble and debris from the impact fell on him and the other troops, he writes that he was thrown violently and was knocked unconscious by the percussion of the impact of the rocket.

The right says the Rockets destroyed his Humvee, but the right is not hospitalized as Ani suffers no obvious injuries and two months later, in October 2005, his unit returns. When Darryl came back and came to work with us, Darryl was still Darryl; in fact, I think he was a little more outgoing. Cathleen Simcoe, who comes from a long line of military veterans, sees no apparent signs of PTSD and her friend, she says she's right, she doesn't seem anxious or very nervous, he fit in with the team, it was just wonderful, there was no performance issue, no concerns, nothing but positive praise, didn't see any change in him, didn't see any injuries, nothing in Everything Darla McDaniel is Wright's ex-partner and the mother of his daughter.

She has a similar view after her time in Iraq. It seems like if anything changed for the better, he was trying, he was doing what he could to be a part of our lives and be a part of our lives. a better father than he'd had, you know, in the past. I mean, I always wanted our daughter to have a father, obviously, to have that presence in her life and it was nice that he was there for her, by all appearances. Wright is prospering so much that he decides to accept a job in his hometown of Seattle, so that he has more opportunities in his field of urban planning and economic development.

I clearly remember what I said, if I give Darrell a bad review or reference, can I keep him because I didn't want to lose him, he was great, he was doing a great job, he fit with our team and I just didn't want to have to hire a replacement because he did good job and it fit very well. and an $80,000 a year job working for the federal Department of Economic Development in their Seattle office when I first met him I thought he was personable, he was easy to talk to he was um, he was friendly CJ Jackson works with Wright in the Office of Economic Development where she manages Human Resources Jackson's experience working with Wright is very different from Kathleen Simcoe's.

She says Wright takes more time off than anyone else in the office, and over time her absences only increase. At some point I run into him in the hallway and I mean, I haven't seen him in a while so I said oh hey stranger, how are you? I didn't know you still worked here. Jackson says Wright blames his absence from work on a variety of physical injuries and mental disabilities stemming from his service in Iraq. He himself revealed many of the things he was suffering to anyone who would listen. He finally got to a point where he says that she can't work, that she can't even get up, that she can't get out of bed, that she's afraid. crowds that she can't get him public transportation.

Eventually, Darryl Ride takes so much paid time off from the federal government that any extra time he takes off must be unpaid, but Right invents a clever way to get the time off and still collect a paycheck. He presents documentation saying that his National Guard unit has called him up with an emergency order, he must answer the call of duty, but the emergency order does not seem correct. See J. Jackson. I realized quite well that our military order dated back six months. The deployment couldn't be considered an emergency, that's when things started to become questionable for me.

Jackson drives to Tacoma to visit Wright's National Guard unit in Captain Murray. He asks an officer about the orbiter Wright has introduced. He came out and said okay. It is embarrassing because we do not have copies of these documents in his files and it is no wonder the order is false. He cut and pasted it basically that's what he did. He cut and pasted military orders. It's blatant fraud according to Assistant U.S. Attorney David Jennings. It's a serious crime and I remember when I found out I walked down the hall and talked to a couple of people who had served in the military and asked them how outrageous it was to fabricate orders, whether it happened all the time or something that was very serious. and they all confirmed that it was serious, no one does, that the Department of Defense is starting to cut ties with Darrell, right, they confirmed that he committed fraud and that he would end his career in the military, since Ride has no future in the military. gets to work rewriting his past, first applying for and receiving the Combat Action Badge with a relatively new award established in 2005 to honor service during active enemy fire, then writing, applying for one of the US's most prestigious military honors .US, the Purple Heart, which is reserved for those wounded or killed on the battlefield who win, I mean, it's one of those medals that you don't want but you just get it depending on the situation you're in and It is held in high esteem because it is a sacrifice that you gave to your country, you gave a part of yourself or you left blood on the battlefield or whatever you know, you held in high esteem the diagnosis of a doctor with an injury traumatic brain injury suffered during that rocket attack on August 30, 2005.

The injury paves the way for the right to receive the Purple Heart on March 28, 2011. Social Security Administration Special Agent Joe Rogers was a proud Purple Heart recipient. He had to display it in a prominent place in his house. He would show it to the people. He would mention it to people. and he even went so far as to have Purple Heart plates on his vehicles, so he was clearly someone who was proud that people saw that and recognized the fact that he has a Purple Heart and received a Purple Heart and, according to the U.S.

Attorney Assistant Gregory Gruber, I think most people in this country would say it's kind of an exalted position in our society, as it should be, and I think he liked getting that attention, but at work things aren't going well. , TRUE? Inspector General of the Department of Commerce. Following Jackson's advice, he begins investigating for falsifying the military order, but Wright is unwilling to remain silent. Someone from the Union contacted me and said, Hey, CJ, you have to pay attention because this guy is filing a complaint against you. he hires a lawyer and claims that CJ Jackson is harassing and discriminating against him because he's a wounded warrior so he diverted attention from him and then zero didn't do it to me and at first I didn't believe it because he was saying well this guy. falsified documents why am I the one in trouble Jackson says he has the support of his immediate superiors but at Washington DC headquarters according to Jackson it is a different story my agency because he said disabled that they took his story before mine Jackson accumulates almost $30,000 in legal fees loses sleep becomes anxious and depressed at one point the agency recommends that Jackson be suspended for 30 days for allegedly violating privacy rights by disclosing to the National Guard that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. myself and spending money on legal fees out of my own pocket I thought I was protecting the government's interests for crying out loud this guy was falsifying documents so he could collect after six years of conflict the case is resolved correctly he gets a trade compensation that includes disability payments Jackson keeps his job, but not without a psychological cost.

I go to bed every night and say Hawaii, what did I do wrong when I wasn't the one who forged documents why was I the one who ran away or the one who fought? For my job, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney David Jennings, the power he wielded as a wounded veteran, a decorated veteran, made his word gospel—at least until Joe Rogers took over the case in downtown Seattle. . Joe Rogers is a special agent inspector. Overall, for the Social Security Administration, it is his job to root out fraud, waste and abuse in disability claims. We receive many accusations of people who do not disclose to Social Security that they are working or who are embellishing their disability too much. or they're faking their disability entirely, so that's the kind of thing we look into.

Agent Rogers receives a tip that there may be something suspicious in Darrell Lea's file, Miss Wright first came forward in 2010 and told Social Security that her disabilities were severe enough that she couldn't get out of bed for a couple of days. days a week he had trouble walking he used a cane he couldn't feed himself he couldn't tie his shoes he couldn't handle his belt but his pants are visible, those are statements from someone who is very severely disabled, a fact is obvious when he writes this claim in 2010, he is still working or at least on the Department of Commerce payroll.

Two researchers like David Jennings, his disability claim seems inconsistent with maintaining $80,000 a year. federal job was so disabled by her post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury that she could not do anything and could not think for a period of more than five seconds reading the file, Agent Rodgers watches as Wright now presents himself to the government . want to see it for yourself or in Snoqualmie Washington and we are in tsukkomi Ridge which is the residential part of Snow Columbia is new or part of the city and most people live here work in the Bellevue Seattle area because it is a Great place to raise a family with schools and things and neighborhoods with lots of kids and this is the street that Mr.

Wright is still alive, in fact his house is across the street here, the blue house with white trim, so I came here to see if I could observe him and if I observed him how he really works, he asked full security to use a cane, so I was hoping to see someone and if I saw him he would be here in a pretty terrible state using a cane. Rodgers points out that Darryl Wright mows the lawn, does yard work, and comes and goes to his house regularly. He never used a Staff, he certainly didn't move with any kind of hesitation or seemed to becertainly disabled or disabled at all, but certainly not as disabled as he represented himself to social security on documents talking to people in Snoqualmie.

Rogers learns Wright. He is a member of Rotary, belongs to the Country Club and serves on the local Planning Commission. Well, it was a tale of two Daryls, we learned that almost everyone spoke highly of him, they spoke of his intelligence, they spoke of his ability, so you know, that was completely different from the Darryl Wright that was represented in all of his benefits applications. and our daughter enjoyed spending time with him. Wright's ex-partner, Darla McDaniel, shares custody of her daughter with Darryl, although her right tells the government she can't operate a car. He drives alone seven hours straight to Boise at least once a month to spend a few days with his daughter.

She adored him because he was a fun father. He could do all the fun things with his agent. Rogers talked to some of Wright's friends, including James Rowe, a local high school coach. Rowe has been friends with Wright for 30 years since the two played basketball in high school. You may remember that he seems to have the FBI in his driveway. I said I make Rogers work. From an FBI agent he learns that he is indeed an assistant basketball coach touted in the team newsletter as a DL stud. right, he goes out on the court to play basketball with a group of friends on Monday nights after games and Rowe goes out to have a few beers, so when they came and asked me if I needed a cane to get into the gym.

I'm thinking with this being a trick question, these guys are just going to see if I'm lying for him because obviously, if he's playing basketball, he's not going to get in the gym. with a cane and then they said when you guys go next door and eat pizza and drink beer, someone has to feed him and I say no, he can drink beer pretty well on his own so there's no one there feeding him. Rowe says. He and his friend go to Mariners baseball game camp with their daughters and fish and crab on the islands of Puget Sound, but Rowe paints a slightly different picture of Darrell than some other sources, while others say Wright returns from Iraq more relaxed.

Rowe interprets Melancholy as melancholy, depressed and distant and sometimes when he's not chatting it's like he's staring into space like something else is going on, but you know I was definitely different when he came back and as Wright joins in on the serves rotating on the boards and even plans to run for City Council in Snoqualmie Rose's interview shows that Wright has a rougher side once, during a guy's weekend in a mountain town, right in line and several other men They are in a seedy bar, the bartender cuts the stallion and takes his beer mug. The resulting hand-to-hand combat is captured by a security camera.

A guy coming after him was big and thick and tried to take a photo of him and I still started hitting him on the head with the jug and they fell to the ground and then the cook ran away. from behind the kitchen and kicked him in the head and filmed it all, Wright finally got all 6 feet 10 inches out of him in a fireman's carry, then sues the bar for allegedly inflaming his PTSD symptoms, the case is settled without neither. side accepting the blame Special Agent Joe Rogers learns that Right collects up to ten thousand dollars a month from five different federal and state agencies.

What became unusual in this case is that the father, the more we dug into it, simply had I think more and more he liked not only the money but also the possibility of having what amounted to a very good salary of over $100,000. a year and I think a lot of that was probably also tax-free and not having to work, but he could, therefore, he could spend his time doing other things that he'd rather do, whether it's on the Planning Commission, playing basketball , coaching basketball, driving to Idaho to see his daughter once a month, whatever it is.

I mean, who wouldn't like that? correct and all of Wright's benefit claims were based on his wounded warrior status. Daryl used his Purple Heart, flaunted it and used it as a weapon every time he could use it, every time he could bring it up, every time he could use it that episode, he did it right back to the point where we started. Referring to this as the Purple Heart

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mer case, in May 2011, the VA launches a new caregiver program that is designed to help compensate family members of wounded warriors, some of whom have had to leave their jobs. to work full time.

Caregivers Wright sees an opportunity, enrolls his sister Karen in the program and she raises a little over two thousand dollars each month, and tells the government that she is at his home 24 hours a day, feeding him, bathing him and clothing him when our care staff VA They were trying to call the caregiver to make an appointment to see Daryl. They were often unable to communicate with the caregiver. You would think a caregiver would be in the person's home. I never saw anyone who came to the house. I'm his caretaker and I never saw his sister show up at the house during the time I was keeping watch here.

Rogers decided to use a bit of subterfuge. An undercover agent approaches right saying that he is investigating an unrelated crime. Hidden camera shows moving. pretty good and the undercover agent finds out that the right wing is actively supporting his girlfriend's political ambitions, she's running for City Council for his campaign and he helps her, oh wow you're yeah that's cool yeah what's that? What does that involve? Isn't it just going? orange door to door we have not started next week we have ordered the villain campaigns for March 19, 2014 Joe Rogers is ready to step out of the shadows and announce his presence at 9:30 a.m.

Knocking on the right front door, his girlfriend answers and takes Rogers back to the master bedroom, where she finds him in bed with the sheets up to his chin for three hours. Rodgers asked several versions of a central question: how is writing able to maintain such a vigorous active schedule? out would not answer those questions and the parts of me would answer. It was very calculated in the sense that it was just at the same time and after doing it I couldn't function for days and that's all I can do. He answered yes, but then when pressed, he would stop answering the question.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Gruber studies PTSD to see if there's any chance it could come and go as described in the scripture, and from everything I've heard from experts, we talk to nurses, doctors, psychologists. A serious case like the one Daryl claimed to have would be very inconsistent with some of the things we saw him do and that Joe Rogers discovered him doing. Perhaps no example is as telling as Wright's trip to Disneyland with his preteen daughter when we asked his daughter what his father's favorite ride at Disneyland was, Space Mountain said now. I don't know if you've ever ridden the Space Mountain attraction and it's been a long time since I've been on it, but I still remember it being very dark. there are flashes of light, there is noise, there are sudden movements or people screaming, it's not what you would expect to be the favorite trip of someone who suffers from severe PTSD, as Daryl said about the trips, his former partner Darla McDaniel, These trips awaken mixed emotions, on the one hand, she is happy for her daughter, but he was trying to make me feel bad about it because I couldn't do those things with our daughter that I had, I had a job, I worked full time, I raised her and I barely I fixed them and somehow he wasn't working and couldn't pay for all these things.

I just remember a lot of people in my life asking me what I was doing, how I lived and I had no idea, no, there was no way to find out on my own when we joined him. but the feds create a detailed timeline there showing exactly where Darryl Wright and his sister have been and what they have been doing from the records we recovered, which included bank and travel and other records, many times when the VA El staff was trying to make an appointment to attend a home visit. Darryl was in Boise, Idaho and his sister was at Walt Disney World or was on a cruise and his sister didn't make an appointment because she knew Daryl was not going to be there or she couldn't be there so it was kind of a layer upon layer upon layer of lies.

Pierre Cook Iraq August 30, 2005 Daryl Wright says a rocket attack on this day shakes his brain and changes his life forever. Years ago I got a call from a federal investigator in Tacoma, Washington, saying, do you know Darrell well? And I said, yeah, he was attached to us in Iraq and they told me they blew him up and knocked him unconscious at his military base here. and in 2005 and I didn't. Brad Ani remembers that day well, but not in the right way. He was standing right next to Darrell and his reaction was the same as mine, he's like, oh shit, you know, like ducking, but he's nice. or as you already know, take a look waiting for what they will give.

Okay, we're good and then I said, "Okay, Lieutenant, you called and I started checking the troops, you know, man, it was great, everyone was doing it." Same thing we were like: I wonder if there are more. It's okay, we're fine. Annie says he and the right, who are training Iraqi troops, are using the explosion as a teaching moment, an opportunity to study the crater and calculate where the rockets came from. there was no debris, the short debris field was a hundred meters away and far from us there was nothing, there were no incidents at that point, that was no big deal, unfortunately, that's how you get used to something like that, you know the investigators . find out that it actually includes two applications for a Combat Action Badge, the first version of rights filed while he was still serving in Iraq tells the truth his original narrative affidavit said I believe the quote is that fortunately there were no casualties or damage to property in that event He was denied a Combat Action badge for that, so, according to investigators, when Darryl Wright returns home, he decides to rewrite history if he presents a second one to describe that the explosion had knocked him down and that All changed.

Jennings calls this a fundamental rights lie and it works well; he receives the Combat Action badge and then turns that award into a Purple Heart when she learns that his signature was attached to the false rights narrative. He was furious and we really did an incredibly good job so far. What worries me is that while we were in Iraq someone threw our good name under the bus and just started creating all these documents with my name on them. You know, 99.9% of those things aren't true, that didn't happen other than that first paragraph. In that report, that's pretty much the rest, it's all made up.

A big lie concerns the photo posing as his wrecked Humvee. The problem is that it is not his vehicle, it is not even a National Guard Humvee, it belongs to the Air Force. Apparently, he has robbed another soldier. The story is still there suffering in its value, someone was probably quite hurt by it, so it's quite embarrassing to use that vehicle and claim that what happened there was yours or build your own story around it, putting yourself as a Purple Heart doing all this. Things that are basically the worst thing you can do when it comes to being a soldier: throw your brothers under the bus to reclaim

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This kind of stuff is what really pisses me off. On January 29, 2015 in federal court in Tacoma Washington, Darrell Lea Wright is indicted on nine counts, including wire and mail fraud, for allegedly stealing $737,000 in government benefits. His sister Karen Wright is also charged with one count of fraud during a three-year investigation. Prosecutor David Jennings takes one particular into account. person affected by Wright CJ Jackson, the woman who blew the whistle only to experience a furious reaction. I can't speak for others, but for me, the hell he had to go through motivated us to keep digging and find more to prove who.

Darryl Wright was really going to show that second Darryl Wright, I think Mr. Wright was trying to create a new persona for some reason he wanted to be this decorated war hero military officer and get the attention and automatic respect that comes from that and I think who really didn't want to work. I think he enjoyed getting free money. and I think he just wanted to do what he wanted to do and the way he wanted to do it Darryl Wright pleads guilty to two counts of wire fraud his sister goes to trial but the jury can't reach a verdict she finally pleads guilty to a charged with making a false statement, his fraud victimizes taxpayers, but also veterans who fear that their true war stories have been tainted, their true struggles somehow diminished, and worry that their efforts to obtain benefits may now be furtherdifficult and I always tell the veterans they know. you have to be your own advocate and we have some guys here who are very good advocates for themselves, recovery Brad Arnie, who served with rights, now works full time as a veterans advocate and employment counselor in Fargo, North Dakota, in most of it.

Get what you deserve or what you earned, but you got it, sometimes you got some fight, yeah you got a damn wheel, it gets greased, yeah, and then it's fine, but then there's these guys in the way. Well, this is not a squeaky wheel. It's a broken one, yeah, you've got a broken wheel like everyone else, that ruins the rest of us, you know, and I've said this point a couple of times, but that's what you know it's going to do, it's going to make it harder for everyone. these. other guys and we just have things coming up.

David Jennings and Gregory Gruber, assistant U.S. attorneys, throughout this case, we were careful to make sure that when we prosecuted Dale Wright for his lies, we were careful not to harm all the progress that has been made in educating the people about PTSD and all I can say about it is that Darryl Wright didn't fail to check a box or forget to remember a doctor's appointment or something, he lied prodigiously and that's why the real heroes, those who have been hurt to those suffering from PTSD, you have nothing to worry about, you went there for us and I think we forget that a lot and it makes it even worse when someone fakes injuries and conditions other very brave men and women. they are actually suffering it is no longer just a crime it is just a tragedy in 2016 the US government rescinds the Combat Action Badge and also his Purple Heart June 1, 2017 Wright is sentenced Cathleen Simcoe, his old friend and boss is called by the prosecution to testify, I kept saying I can't be him, it can't be him, and then he went and I saw the evidence, it was like you wanted to deny it until there is irrefutable evidence and you can't deny it anymore and then I got angry and angrier because I was so disappointed.

Simcoe testifies that Wright appeared unharmed when he returned home from Iraq. At one point they ask him if he sees Wright in the courtroom and to point him out and as I pointed out he waved his hand in this little greeting and it made me want to throw up he just didn't have the decency to hang his head it was just childish. and immature and it was totally inappropriate, my hero is the whistleblower in this situation because as taxpayers they are the ones who end up paying the bill when people like Darryl do the things they do, which is why she deserves a medal.

CJ Jackson reads his statement about American

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. in open court in which she explains how Wright retaliated against her for exposing his fraud Darryl Wright defamed my character for what this man has put me through what no one should ever go through made six years of my life a nightmare to be able to continue stealing lying intimidating and manipulating people to get your way Darryl Wright is sentenced to three years in federal prison to pay restitution of six hundred and forty-six thousand dollars his sister Karen Wright has been sentenced to three years of probation both refused to speak to American greed I'm glad he's in prison.

I'm glad he feels some pain about this. I'm glad the game is being restored. Hopefully the bail will get some of that out of him. He hurt his community by lying to them. He hurt the National Guard. my unit because he got us into his scam he hurt a lot of people along the way he needs to feel some pain thanks for listening to the

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