COMMUNITY
Purple heartbreak Fake war hero scammed state — and many others along the way
BY ELIAS WEISS
O STEAL VALOR IS TO ADORN oneself in borrowed laurels of courage. It’s the product of either malice, “A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.” – CRISS JAMI T cowardice or vanity, and generally misses its aim in each of these aspects. Because sooner or later, the carefully placed blocks of deception topple under the gravity of truth. Some weave grand lies and exit dramatically. Then there’s Stanley Wayne Wineberg Jr., who spun a slow-burning tale of wartime heroism that spans decades and a great distance. But it’s here in Maricopa where the curtain may fall on his exploits. It was in this city where the seemingly innocent U.S. Army vet became the focus of a state criminal investigation in September. He scammed a state agency and got away with it, forcing a change to the department’s legal policy last month. But that’s the mere tip of the iceberg. Cue the unraveling. Vanity plates Wineberg, by all accounts, seemed like any other Maricopa resident. He’d drive home from his job as a cable guy, park his truck in the driveway of his Glennwilde Groves home and greet his newlywed wife at the door. The setting sun would throw a beam of light against his polished Purple Heart license plates as his wife closed the front door on another picturesque day. She didn’t know about the half-dozen wives who came before her. She didn’t know he left them all in financial ruin. She definitely didn’t know she’d be next.
What else didn’t she know? Plenty — like his criminal record, bankruptcy, mounting back child support, tax fraud and IRS fines. And she hadn’t yet figured out those Purple Heart license plates were obtained fraudulently. Not until that letter from the Arizona Office of Inspector General came in the mail Sept. 11.
Wineberg joined the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association fronting as a Purple Heart recipient injured while saving lives in Somalia. His war story is fabricated — but here, he wears his CVMA jacket plastered with a phony Purple Heart medal.
InMaricopa.com | December 2023
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