Leroy Bartlett-King told quite the tale to a University of North Florida senior writing a story for a local project known as the Hope Fund that is published in the Times-Union.
The 26-year-old veteran gave a spine-tingling account of stepping on a landmine in Iraq — pausing long enough on the mine’s pressure plate to allow his fellow squad members to get clear of the blast. He continues to stand behind most of his original story today.
“I completely felt like he was being trustworthy,” said the story’s author, Joshua Brangenberg. “Even when we got into specific details about the event, he seemed like he was getting emotional about potential deaths that may have happened.
“I didn’t feel like I had anything to question because not only was his story being corroborated by the social worker, he was also getting emotional.”
The social worker, Suzie Loving, said Bartlett-King arrived at the door of Five Star Veterans Center hunched over in a wheelchair.
“I had a call come in from the veterans service officer from Wounded Warrior [Project],” Loving said. “We’d been making great strides working with them and they would send people to us who needed a place to stay.
“He said they’d met a young veteran in Tampa at one of the PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) clinics who would be released soon and needed a place to stay.
“I said, ‘Great.’ ”
The Army veteran could barely stand and had no balance.
Bartlett-King later told the Times-Union that the Army discharged him because he could no longer perform his job as an infantryman.
He stuttered, and spittle formed at the corner of his mouth as he spoke, during his original interview for the Hope Fund story and during an interview with the Times-Union.
He was destitute, Loving said.
“We put him in a room and we were all upset,” Loving said.
With only a seemingly unfathomable 10 percent disability rating from the Veterans’ Administration and no records, Loving nominated Bartlett-King to receive financial help from the Hope Fund, a collaborative effort between the University of North Florida, The Florida Times-Union and HandsOn Jacksonville.
It did seem like quite the story and ran in the Nov. 30, 2014, edition of the Times-Union.
Then the email came.
A man who served with Bartlett-King in Charlie Co. 1st Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division wrote the Times-Union expressing doubts about his story.
After Times-Union staff began digging, the lie was uncovered. There was no landmine, and there were no injuries from one.
Bartlett-King was kicked out of the Army with an other-than-honorable discharge due to drug abuse, according to a copy of his records obtained by the Times-Union.
His official discharge papers, or DD 214, also show that he never served in Afghanistan, like he told Brangenberg for the original story.
Not only did Bartlett-King not step on a landmine, his unit suffered no casualties due to enemy contact during the whole deployment, one of the unit’s officers told the Times-Union. Three other members of his company confirmed the officer’s casualty count.
“He was perfectly fine, physically, when he got back after that deployment,” said Steven Work, a fellow member of Charlie Co. and veteran of the deployment. “He got married, had a child and bought a Jeep.
Then, Work said, Bartlett-King began failing urinalyses.
If Bartlett-King had been injured in combat, he would have received a Purple Heart.
Though an Iraq campaign medal, Army commendation medal and even a good conduct medal all appear on his records, a Purple Heart does not.
When confronted with these facts by a Times-Union reporter, Bartlett-King sank down in his chair, crossed his arms and grimaced.
“I did get injured in Iraq,” he said, sticking to his story. “I did step on a landmine.
“I did.”
But the facts tell a different story.
Those who donated to the Hope Fund because of his story were not the only ones harmed.
“My concern is to preserve the integrity of the Hope Fund, which has been around for 20 years,” said Judy Smith, HandsOn’s CEO. “What I want readers to come away with is that, while we try to screen in every way, shape and form, sometimes someone like this will slip through the cracks for a period of time – and his period of time is up.”
All told, about $200 of Hope Fund money went to Bartlett-King.
He has agreed to pay back the money, Suzie Loving said.
“This fellow lied to a number of people and agencies, and all of them believed and trusted him,” said Florida Times-Union Editor Frank Denton. “We have to be open and up front about the falsehoods. This by no means should undermine the many good works done by the Hope Fund project every year. The Times-Union will review its own policies and those used for the Hope Fund stories to help prevent something like this from happening again.”
The Hope Fund, begun on a petition from UNF professor Paula Horvath to the Times-Union 20 years ago, has collected more than $2.3 million in that time, helping over 150,000 local residents in need.
“In 20 years, we’ve only had something like this happen once before,” Horvath said. “We do background checks on every recipient of Hope Fund money, and his came back clean.”
However, Horvath said they did not ask for military records from Bartlett-King.
“The Hope Fund does tremendous good,” Horvath said. “The help that we give is for very basic needs. It’s not for luxuries or gifts, it’s for light bills and catching people up on their rent. I would hope that the lies of one bad apple wouldn’t spoil the treasure that the Hope Fund is.”
For Times-Union readers, those who donated to Bartlett-King and volunteers at the Hope Fund, no one may ever know why Bartlett-King chose to not tell the full truth about his service.
“You wonder if this is all the truth in his mind,” Smith said.
Horvath said, for her, the discovery of the truth was heartbreaking.
“My heart dropped into my stomach,” she said. “He knew — because we explained it to him — what this has done over the years, and to think someone would jeopardize the Hope Fund is extraordinary and alarming.
Clifford Davis: (904) 359-4103
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©2015 The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, Fla.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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