Southland official's war story was fiction - A water board member is charged with a crime for saying he'd received the Medal of Honor.
Xavier Alvarez, the newest director of Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Claremont, had a personal story so harrowing he came to be known as the "Rambo" of the water board.
He said he was a 25-year veteran of the Marine Corps. In 1979, he rescued the U.S. ambassador during the siege of the embassy in Tehran. He was shot twice, hanging from a helicopter, removing the American flag on the way out.
He also said he was married to a "Mexican starlet" but couldn't be seen with her because of all the paparazzi; played ice hockey at a minor level for the Detroit Red Wings; and had been a cop in Downey until he was let go for excessive force.
But when Alvarez, 49, told a gathering of water officials that he had received the Medal of Honor -- an award held by only about 100 living people -- a call soon came from the FBI.
Authorities say Alvarez never served in the military. Last month, he became the first person in the nation charged with making a bogus claim of having a medal for valor, according to the FBI.
"When this award was given over the years, it meant something extraordinary," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Craig H. Missakian. "The more phony war heroes we have running around claiming the honor, the less the medal comes to signify for the handful of soldiers who actually earned it, and for the country as well."
Alvarez said he planned to fight the charge. He is expected to appear in court next month and could face up to a year in prison.
Many people have been prosecuted for wearing unearned medals or for lying about military service to get veterans benefits. But this year, under the new Stolen Valor Act, it became a misdemeanor even to claim medal honors, whether to pump up one's reputation at work or to pick up a woman at a bar.
Alvarez may have a tough time challenging the law, according to constitutional law experts who say lying is not protected by the 1st Amendment.
Doug Sterner, a veteran in Pueblo, Colo., was behind the law's passage. Over the last six years, Sterner has been building a database of the military's valor-medal recipients and, in doing so, ran across various charlatans.
People often would contact him through his website, www.homeofheroes.com, inquiring about a relative. Sometimes it was heartbreaking work -- telling a son his deceased father was not the hero he had claimed to be.
