In a stunningly embarrassing twist, the chief investigator at the Oklahoma Veterans Affairs Department has been fired and is facing prosecution after authorities concluded he is a fraud.
Steven B. Pancoast Jr., 41, was never the state-certified law enforcement officer he pretended to be, authorities allege. His paperwork turned out to be faked.
Instead, he is an ex-convict who spent almost three years in a New Jersey prison in the 1990s before moving to Oklahoma, they say.
Friday night, a Canadian County judge authorized a search of Pancoast’s home in Mustang and signed a warrant for his arrest.
Pancoast is accused in the arrest warrant of impersonating a police officer, perjury and illegal possession of a firearm after a felony conviction. He turned himself in Saturday morning and was released after posting bail. Prosecutors charged him Monday in Canadian County District Court.
“Pancoast claimed that he was a State of Oklahoma CLEET certified law enforcement officer,” an agent for the state attorney general wrote in the arrest warrant affidavit. “Based on this, state and federal agencies, including ... the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office and the Department of Homeland Security, utilized Pancoast in criminal investigations and prosecutions.”
His involvement has compromised both the high-profile investigation into the embezzlement of hundreds of thousands of dollars at the American Legion’s state headquarters and a high-profile murder case involving a nursing home for veterans in Claremore, prosecutors acknowledge.
Pancoast on Wednesday denied wrongdoing.
“Don’t believe everything you hear, man,” Pancoast told The Oklahoman. “I’m saying it’s false. ... I really don’t want to be made out to be a bad guy because I’m not.”
Prosecutors allege he committed perjury in Canadian County when he identified himself last year on an affidavit for a search warrant as “a CLEET certified law enforcement officer.”
CLEET is the commonly used acronym for a state agency known as the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training. A CLEET representative told The Oklahoman there is no record for Pancoast there.
Pancoast claimed he was given a CLEET card in 2013, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. He hand-delivered what he said was a photocopy of the card to the attorney general’s office March 11.
The card turned out to be fictitious — an old security guard certification card signed by a director who left the agency in 2008, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Pancoast told The Oklahoman, “There’s a screw-up there. I’ve signed for my stuff a hundred times when I went to my training classes so I don’t know what that deal is.”
Pancoast also denied having a criminal record in New Jersey.
However, prison and court records in New Jersey show he went to prison for almost three years after two arrests in 1992. He finished his sentence in January 1996.
He was confined to prison for larceny and a weapons offense, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. Authorities said they confirmed it is the same man by comparing fingerprints.
Pancoast had developed a reputation as a hard worker who became especially focused on uncovering instances of abuse and neglect at the seven state centers that provide nursing care to veterans. He worked at times with federal Homeland Security agents on sensitive money laundering probes. He regularly was seen armed at work with a pistol.
He was the lead investigator in the pending second-degree murder case against Kenneth Adams, a former physician’s assistant at the Claremore Veterans Center. Adams is accused of neglecting his medical duties, leading to the deaths of residents Louis Arterberry, 86, and Jay Minter, 85, in 2012.
Pancoast also has had an extensive role in investigating a former American Legion official, David Austin Kellerman. Prosecutors had been preparing to file a major financial embezzlement case against Kellerman but a new investigator may have to regather evidence before that can happen.
Also, prosecutors may have to drop a drug case against Kellerman because of Pancoast’s involvment in the search that found methamphetamine in Kellerman’s house.
“Internally, the attorney general’s office has initiated a review of all matters in which Pancoast was involved to determine what, if any, actions should be taken in those cases,” said Aaron Cooper, a spokesman for Attorney General Scott Pruitt.
Assistant Attorney General Megan Tilly, who advises the state’s multicounty grand jury, said she spent Friday notifying district attorneys across the state of the situation with Pancoast. She said at least one case he participated in in Cleveland County resulted in a conviction and may have to be re-tried.
She said further charges may be filed against Pancoast over his claims.
The Veterans Affairs Department fired Pancoast March 13. He had worked for the agency since mid-2010 and was making $75,000 a year at the time of his termination. His official title was safety programs administrator.
“A background search conducted before his hiring at the ODVA did not turn up any information that would have prevented his hiring,” said Shane Faulkner, the public information officer for the Veterans Affairs Department
He said the department used the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to do the background check in 2010. He said Pancoast would not have been hired if the criminal record from New Jersey had come up then.
The attorney general’s office asked the OSBI for a background check of Pancoast after questions about his claims arose this month. The attorney general’s office reported this year’s OSBI check did turn up the New Jersey criminal record.
Pancoast had business cards that described him as special agent in charge of the internal affairs bureau of the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs. The public information officer said the department has no internal affairs bureau.
Pancoast described himself in at least one search warrant affidavit as a former New York City police officer for two years and a former U.S. Army military police officer for six years. However, in a resume he sent to the Veterans Affairs Department in 2010, he wrote only that he “observed with the New York City Police Department.” He made no reference to the Army in the resume.
The FBI has become involved in the matter, as well as internal affairs investigators with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, The Oklahoman has learned.
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