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A convicted felon is reportedly facing gun charges in Nevada after setting up a military-style training school and a security firm on the strength of a long-running and widely disseminated lie that he was a decorated Navy SEAL.
ABC News reports A.J. Dicken, 57, parlayed such lies into nearly a million dollars in financial backing from unsuspecting investors, as well as untallied sums allegedly swindled from the people who went to his Carson City school.
"He can be very charming, very engaging," Dr. Brian Romaneschi, one of Dicken’s principal investors, told ABC News after learning the truth. "He presents a face that kind of draws you in."
Carol Roberts, a real Navy veteran who attended Dicken’s school, and also worked for his ill-fated firm, said: “He wouldn't tell these outrageous stories just right off the bat. He would drop little bits of things that are plausible. And he would tailor that plausibility story to each person, knowing what they knew."
According to ABC News, Dicken told people for years he was not only a retired Navy SEAL and ex-CIA employee – but a two-time Medal of Honor recipient who fired the fateful bullet that killed Osama Bin Laden.
Folks, there have been only nineteen people ever who have received the CMOH, and not a one of them is alive today.
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