Man pleads guilty to lying about Medal of Honor

A Pomona man who once boasted of being awarded the Medal of Honor pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to lying about receiving the award, the nation’s top military honor.

A subdued Xavier Alvarez, 50, who sits on the board of directors for the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in Claremont, admitted to violating the Stolen Valor Act, a recently enacted federal law that makes it a crime for a person to falsely claim he or she was awarded medals for service in the U.S. armed forces.

A law making it illegal for people to wear medals they did not earn has been on the books for years, but the Stolen Valor Act, signed by President Bush in December 2006, made it illegal for a person to even say he or she had received certain honors if they had not.

Last fall, Alvarez became the first person to be charged for making this type of verbal misrepresentation.

“We have to guard the honor of our nation’s military heroes, and this prosecution was a small attempt to do that,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Craig Missakian.

Under the plea agreement accepted by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner on Monday, Alvarez probably will be placed on probation when he returns for sentencing July 21.

Federal prosecutors said Alvarez portrayed himself as a Marine Corps veteran and war hero while campaigning for the water district seat last year. Boasts about his supposed 25-year career in the Marine Corps and his wartime heroics were so well-known that he was dubbed the “Rambo” of the water board. According to one tale, he claimed to have dangled from a helicopter to remove the American flag from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when it was under siege nearly three decades ago.

After his election, while speaking at a meeting between his board and that of a neighboring water district, Alvarez made the specific claim that he had been awarded the Medal of Honor by Congress.

Prosecutors have obtained a tape of the meeting.

In court Monday, Alvarez wore slacks, a guayabera-style shirt and black-rimmed glasses as he politely responded to numerous questions from Klausner. The judge accepted the plea after Alvarez said that no one had pressured him to take the deal, and that he believed the deal to be in his best interest.

Alvarez and his attorney, Deputy Federal Public Defender Brianna Fuller, declined comment despite being followed for two city blocks by a throng of television reporters.

Doug Sterner, who wrote the Stolen Valor Act and maintains a website honoring war heroes, said false claims of military service and associated honors are a common problem.

“It’s rampant,” said Sterner, an Army veteran living in Pueblo, Colo.

 scott.glover@latimes.com