Fake colonel arrested in Virginia on fraud charges
A former Las Vegas man, who posed as a highly decorated Army colonel and falsified documents to obtain license plates reserved for wounded Nevada war veterans, has been arrested on fraud charges by police in Leesburg, Va.
A news release from the Leesburg Police Department said Richard Cruze, 55, had again falsified documents to show he was a highly decorated military veteran with the rank of colonel, as well as a medical doctor.
According to Virginia jail records, he is also known as Jake Cruze or Jacob Reginald Cruze, the name he used in Las Vegas.
Calls Friday to a Las Vegas telephone number for Cruze were not returned. The calls were received by an answering machine, which has a message that says, "Jake can’t come to the phone right now."
A Leesburg detective arrested Cruze on Feb. 2 on three felony counts: forging a public record, uttering or attempting to employ as true a forged record and making a false statement on an application for a title certification issued by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. And he was arrested in connection with one misdemeanor: falsely using the word physician or doctor to advertise for a weight loss clinic.
The Leesburg Police Department received a complaint Jan. 24 from a business that Cruze might have committed several frauds.
"Detectives discovered the suspect had falsified documents to DMV and possibly to other state agencies," according to the Leesburg police release.
He appeared before a magistrate and was held without bond at the Loudoun County (Va.) Detention Center where he remained in custody Friday, awaiting a March 13 hearing.
Cruze had been part owner of a Leesburg weight-loss salon, Madame et Monsieur, a franchise in an international chain with headquarters in Las Vegas.
Founder and owner Robey Taute of Las Vegas said the company had ceased its contract with Cruze before he was arrested.
Likewise, Brenda Gibb, Madame et Monsieur’s Leesburg owner, said Friday that "any affiliation with him (Cruze) was immediately terminated."
"I’m in total shock," she said.
In 2004 in Las Vegas, Cruze raised suspicions of former Army Rangers when he showed up at the Riviera for their annual conference wearing a dress-blue uniform bearing a colonel insignia and numerous ribbons and medals on his jacket. But when he was asked about his military career by attendees, his comments didn’t fit with events, locations and dates of military operations.
A month before the conference, he had spoken to fifth-graders gathered for a career day event at Eisenberg Elementary School, where he wore a green Class A Army uniform and display of ribbons. A source familiar with his career day presentation said he gave the students a "drill sergeant" routine and later remarked that he hoped he hadn’t been too hard on the students.
Cruze had posted a resume with a nursing organization that said he served in Vietnam from June 1969 to September 1970 as a combat medic and had earned the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Cross of Gallantry, Soldiers Medal and the Army Distinguished Service Medal.
But records obtained from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis under a Freedom of Information Act request by a nonprofit watchdog organization, the POW Network, showed that Cruze never served in combat and received no awards or decorations. Instead, he is listed as an Army reservist from July 21, 1988, to Jan. 3, 1994, who served on inactive status for a hospital unit in Phoenix.
In 2005, Cruze was cited by a Las Vegas police detective on the FBI’s Special Task Force for illegally possessing Purple Heart license plates and driving without a license, which had been revoked for nonpayment of child support.
In all, three tickets were issued to Cruze stemming from an investigation into public appearances he made in which he wore Army uniforms displaying the rank of colonel and ribbons and medals of valor that he never earned, including the Army’s second-highest valor award, the Distinguished Service Cross.
Cruze had been investigated then for federal violations of the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it illegal for people to wear any U.S. military rank, award or decorations they did not earn.
The FBI took no immediate action against Cruze, but the Las Vegas police detective for the bureau’s task force confiscated Cruze’s Purple Heart license plates. Instead of facing Stolen Valor charges, he was cited for the traffic violations that carried combined fines of $1,620. A justice of the peace reduced the fines collectively to $399.
Asked why he wasn’t charged with violations of the Stolen Valor Act, U.S. Attorney for Nevada Daniel Bogden responded to an email from the Review-Journal in 2006, saying, "Considering our limited resources and manning we did not feel that additional misdemeanor charges … were necessary since the matter had already been addressed by local authorities."
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia said Friday that no Stolen Valor charges had been filed against Cruze in relation to his fraud arrest on Feb. 2.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide this year on the issue of free speech in light of the Stolen Valor Act.
Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.
