Robert Joseph “PegLeg” Jones, Fake Ranger, Solicits Money From Others

Louisville, Kentucky –  Over the years we have tackled many cases, but this one was one of those that I wish I didn’t have to do. About six months ago, Robert Jones started showing up in a lot of the Veteran’s groups and pages on Facebook. He was always posting about his ailments and his service overseas. He befriended a lot of the high profile Veterans including Dale Comstock, Michael Schlitz, Mat Best, and myself.

He was admitted to a group called OIF/OEF Nation, which is a group for those who have served in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Enduring Freedom. He began making claims of being a Ranger and befriended several Rangers in the community.  He also began telling his stories of how he was always sick from CPRS(Complex Regional Pain Syndrome), and that he was always in the hospital. He complained he couldn’t find a job, and that he needed money to pay bills and other things, so of course the Veteran community stood up and began raising money for him. It is hard to tell exactly how much money was raised, but he would also post his own GoFundMe’s and of course, people would donate.

I had a gut feeling about him, but I let it slide and passed it off as just too many years doing this. He was always using his lost leg as a way to promote himself, his bracelets, and the shirts he had made through our friends at GruntStyle. I asked him one day, how he lost his leg and he told me he lost it in a job accident after he served, what bothered me is he allowed the perception to stay that he lost his leg while serving. He was a Veteran with a disability, not a disabled Veteran which means two different things. Again, I let it go as being overly cautious due to my daily dealings with fake vets.

Then, Tyler Bergseid, the creator of OIF/OEF Nation came to me and asked a question about Robert, which made me think I wasn’t being to cautious, as he too was suspect of Robert and his intentions. Tyler then brought in another admin that had also become suspicious of Robert and his fundraising, Diana Hicks. Diana also helped tremendously with this case, collecting lots of evidence.

So we began an investigation and came to find out that Robert was making claims of being a Ranger and telling people that he couldn’t remember a lot about being one because of his brain injury. Several Rangers jumped on board to help flush him out, we got tons of screenshots where he claimed Ranger.

He even had our friends over at Grunt Style create a shirt with his image from which he was going to make money, once we made them aware he was a fraud they removed the shirt and offered to replace the shirt for anyone who purchased it, with any shirt from their website. You can contact Grunt Style and send them the shirt back for your replacement.  We have been informed that all proceeds that Jones was supposed to get for the shirts that were sold have been donated to a charity by Grunt Style so that Jones wouldn’t receive the funds from the shirt.

He scammed a lot of people, using the perception that he was a wounded warrior. We got his records and confirmed he only served one month at Fort Jackson before being put out on an entry-level discharge.

We set up a phone call with Robert to let him know we found out the truth, this call was attended by Tyler and Diana from OIF/OEF Nation and myself. Once confronted he tried to use the names of Rangers that he thought verified him, we informed him that they knew he was a fake and were taking screenshots of the conversations. He then claimed he had memory loss from losing his leg and thought he remembered being a Ranger and being in combat. He finally hung up the phone after we told him we didn’t believe that excuse.

After we went public, he posted what he considered an apology to his page again blaming it on his memory. We tried to tell him that the Military community wouldn’t take kindly to his excuse after scamming thousands and the comments on his post showed the anger in the community.

Below are just a few of the photos he used to try and make his claims believable, as you can tell they are really bad Photoshop.

He then sent a message to us and said his mom told him he has Multiple Personality Disorder and that he would try to pay back all the money he scammed from everyone. We have tons of screenshots, photos, and a recording of the conversation we had with him where we asked him to come clean we will update this article soon. We wanted to get this out so no one else would fall victim to his scams as he has taken thousands of dollars at this point.

UPDATE:

Below is a recording of the phone conversation we had with Robert the night he was outed, he wouldn’t apologize, he kept blaming his memory for his lies. He claimed he had dreams of being deployed, and being a Ranger. He pulled a Brian Williams and Miss-remembered all of his service.

UPDATE:

Robert posted a video to Facebook with half an apology and blaming a mental condition for what happened, it seems he hasn’t learned and is working to get back to his old ways.