Have You Seen This Mustachioed Man?

 

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Bobby Thompson, AKA Ronnie Brittain

The person calling himself Bobby Thompson and claiming to be a retired lieutenant commander in the Navy surfaced in Florida in 1998, according to a timeline compiled by the St. Petersburg Times, giving his age as 52 when he registered to vote in Hillsborough County. He formed a Navy veterans' political action committee the next year, and then launched the U.S. Navy Veterans Association as a non-profit veterans service organization in 2002, applying for tax-exempt status with the IRS.

Ohio Attorney General

A man calling himself Bobby Thompson who once... View Full Caption

A man calling himself Bobby Thompson who once rubbed shoulders with GOP political luminaries is now wanted by Ohio state authorities, who say the $100 million he raised in the name of a charity for U.S. Navy veterans cannot be located. He went by the names Bobby Thompson and Ronnie Brittain, but authorities say both were stolen identities, and he is now a fugitive. Close

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After the St. Petersburg Times began investigating Thompson, a reporter from the newspaper was able to confront "Thompson" outside his Ybor City, Florida duplex in 2009 and conduct an interview with him. Thompson told the paper he was part Choctaw Indian and was from Mississippi. He also said he had a relative in the tribe named Bobby Thompson, "but I'm not him." He also claimed to have joined the Navy underage, but the Navy has no record of his service.

According to Ohio authorities, "Thompson" stole the identity of a man named Bobby Thompson from Washington state. He also had an identity card from the state of Indiana issued under the name of a man from New Mexico named Ronnie Brittain. The real Ronnie Brittain is the head of a veterans group in New Mexico.

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