The US Attorney's Office said in a statement that 62-year-old Wayne Simmons of Annapolis, Maryland, was sentenced in the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. Dana Boente, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said "Wayne Simmons is a fraud. Simmons has no military or intelligence background, or any skills relevant to the positions he attained through his fraud."
US District Judge T.S. Ellis III sentenced Simmons to three years of supervised release and ordered him to forfeit two firearms and pay $176,000 in criminal proceeds. Simmons was indicted in October 2015 by a grand jury for presenting himself as an "Outside Paramilitary Special Operations Officer" for the Central Intelligence Agency between 1973-2000.
Simmons’ actual jobs during that time include managing a rent-by-the-hour hot tub business, mortgage broker, nightclub doorman, bookie, and even defensive back for the New Orleans Saints professional football team. Simmons’ lawyer, William Cummings, hoped his client would receive a lighter sentence.
In April, Simmons plead guilty to major fraud, a firearms charge and wire fraud. He admitted to defrauding the government when he worked as a team leader in an Army program in 2008, and again in 2010 when he acted as an "intelligence adviser" while deployed to Afghanistan. In 2009 he made similar false claims when he attempted to work for the State Department's Worldwide Protective Service.
Simmons also defrauded a woman of $125,000 in a sham real estate investment deal. At the time of his arrest, Simmons was illegally in possession of two non-permitted firearms, which he was prohibited to have because of two federal firearms convictions, a state conviction and prior felonies.
