Tragedy Tricksters

Capitalizing on the suffering and heroism of others? Come on, how low can you get?

By Michael Crowley

From Reader's Digest

Images from this article

REUTERS/Peter Morgan

Con people took advantage of the tragedy of 9/11 just as they did of other horrific events in U.S. history.

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REUTERS/Peter Morgan

Con people took advantage of the tragedy of 9/11 just as they did of other horrific events in U.S. history.

Of all the stories to emerge from September 11, Tania Head's was one of the more harrowing: Trapped in her Merrill Lynch office on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center's south tower, her clothes afire, Head crawled to safety through the inferno—becoming just one of 19 people to escape from the floors above the impact of the hijacked jetliner. She recalled how a dying man handed her his inscribed wedding ring to give to his widow. Head's own life, she said, was saved by a stranger who doused her clothes with water, and she emerged without debilitating injuries—but suffered the loss of her fiancé, who was killed in the north tower.

Head's experience made her a minor celebrity. She gave speeches to students about her travails, led tours of Ground Zero for VIPs, and ran a nonprofit group for 9/11 survivors.

Then her story began to fall apart. Merrill Lynch has no record of employing her. Her supposed fiancé's family and friends say there was no engagement. She never provided the name of the widow she supposedly returned the ring to or the name of the hospital that treated her. Many details of her biography can't be confirmed or have been disproved. After the survivors' group kicked her off its board, Head hired a lawyer, who refused to comment on the discrepancies.

Then there's Mario Mastellone, an office painter from East Windsor, New Jersey, who claimed that injuries he suffered at the World Trade Center on 9/11 left him unable to work. A public compensation fund awarded him $1.08 million. Later, authorities learned that Mastellone lied about his condition. In January he pleaded guilty to a charge that could land him in prison for ten years.

How, you may be asking, could people lie about surviving 9/11? The answer is simple: pride and greed.

Like tragedy, war also brings out the best—and worst—in people. Consider Jesse Adam MacBeth,

who recently claimed he'd suffered injuries and posttraumatic stress disorder after combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. MacBeth, who said he'd been awarded decorations for valor, along with a Purple Heart, filed a claim seeking disability benefits. MacBeth also made himself into a hero of the antiwar movement by going public with horrifying claims of atrocities committed

by his fellow soldiers in Iraq. But MacBeth was never awarded any medals. He was not wounded. He neither witnessed atrocities nor served in Iraq or Afghanistan—he never even completed basic training. MacBeth's lies earned him five months in prison.

He may soon have company. Last September the U.S. Attorney's Office for Washington State announced it was investigating a dozen cases in which fake veterans had bilked the government out of $1.4 million for injuries they claimed to have sustained in war zones ranging from Korea to Iraq.

But it's not always about money. Poseurs are so prevalent that in 2005, Congress passed the so-called Stolen Valor Act, which toughened penalties for people who wear military decorations they did not earn. FBI agent Thomas Cottone, Jr., has estimated that for every actual Navy SEAL, some 300 impostors go around claiming that distinction—without any particular profit motive.

This phenomenon is not new. In 1959 an estimated 100,000 people watched the funeral procession of the man claiming to be the last surviving Civil War veteran. Alas, they celebrated an impostor. Writer William Marvel discovered that the last 12 men calling themselves the last living Confederate were fakers. Such pretenders crave the glory that comes to those who march off to battle and live to tell about it—except these guys never marched off anywhere.

Understandable? Yes. Despicable? Of course.

Horror hucksters aren't limited to terrorist attacks or military service. They can arrive at the scene of natural disasters or at a hospital room—even their own. In November 2005 a Chicago-area woman named Josette Hamilton told friends and neighbors she had developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. When Hamilton began wearing a bandanna and complaining of constant fatigue, her community responded with compassion, donating $38,000 to a fund established in Hamilton's name. One couple did her laundry twice a week.

Hamilton did not have cancer, however, and when her story unraveled, she was arrested on charges of forgery and theft by deception. After pleading guilty, she was sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to pay $43,000 in restitution. Perhaps, like Tania Head, she was seeking the sympathy and recognition that had eluded her in the course of her actual life, inventing a fake life for that purpose instead.

Taken to extremes, this desire for attention constitutes a mental illness, Munchausen syndrome. This perplexing pathology has been portrayed in TV medical dramas, often featuring mothers who harm their children and then heroically come to the rescue in a kind of Munchausen by proxy. Technology has created a new version: So many sympathy-starved, attention-seeking people staged their own deaths on a social-networking website called LiveJournal that a shorthand term evolved for it: fake lj deaths.

In the end, it's important to remember that scammers are a small minority. What we can't let them steal are our open hearts—because, ultimately, these stories say less about con artists than about the reflexive generosity Americans exhibit toward those in need.

And that's something to protect at all costs.

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How to Spot a Phony

Look for "superficial glibness," says psychologist Loren Pankratz, an expert in deception at Oregon Health & Science University. "You ask a question and the person gives you an answer that doesn't answer the question you ask-they just glide right past it."

Here are some additional tips:

>Ask for specifics, without sounding confrontational.

>Check public records if you're unsure, or use Internet searches to fact-check easily verifiable details.

>Some people are such careful liars that it's hard to pin them down without a full investigation. If you're truly suspicious, contact the authorities.

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Outraged? Tell Michael about it at rd.com/crowley. •

From Reader's Digest - May 2008

• • Scams
• • Terrorism
• • Sept. 11
• • Security Threats

• The $40 Billion Scam
• How slick lawyers have turned a genuine health crisis into a ripoff you won't believe.
• 
• The Lowest of the Low
• Why your charity dollars may be going to crooks instead of to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
• 
• The Hero
• "Our lives have changed forever."
•