Questions Swirl Around Vet at Center of Bogus Migrant Story

The controversy around an Army veteran accused of fabricating a tale of homeless veterans being booted from hotels to make room for migrants deepened on Friday—with state officials launching an investigation and questions raised about her claims of being a Purple Heart recipient.

The woman at the center of the maelstrom is Sharon Toney-Finch, who was inducted last July into the New York State Senate Veterans’ Hall of Fame after a special salute by lawmakers for her service. She is listed in the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor, has been the subject of glowing profiles about her heroism under fire, and once appeared on Fox & Friends to unveil a set of Purple Heart commemorative coins. On May 16, New York State Sen. Rob Rolison, a former police officer, honored Toney-Finch as a “woman of distinction,” making special note of her Purple Heart.

As Toney-Finch tells it, she was partway through her second deployment to Iraq in March 2010 when her convoy was ambushed. The attack put her in a coma for six months, Toney-Finch said in an interview earlier this month. She says she woke up that August in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, with a traumatic brain injury. She would later be feted by various groups for that tremendous sacrifice, proudly wearing a Purple Heart medal she said she earned for being wounded in action. Toney-Finch has spoken of enduring 82 surgeries as a result of her wounds.

No Record

However, U.S. Army spokesman Bryce Dubee told The Daily Beast on Friday that the Department of Defense does not know anything about Toney-Finch and a Purple Heart.

Dubee provided details of Toney-Finch’s service, which show she joined the Army in February 2006. She deployed to Iraq twice and earned the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal with campaign star, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Korea Defense Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, a Driver and Mechanic Badge w/Driver-Wheeled Vehicle(s), and the Overseas Service Ribbon.

“We have nothing on file indicating a Purple Heart,” Dubee said.

Nor do the dates Toney-Finch gave for her hospitalization in Europe appear to line up with those provided by the Army, which place her in Iraq from March 2007 to May 2008, and again from October 2009 to October 2010.

Reached by phone, Toney-Finch told The Daily Beast that the Army’s information is inaccurate. She shared a photograph of her DD-214 military separation papers, which list a “Purple Heart Medal” in the section for decorations earned, going on to say she received the honor after leaving the service as an Automated Logistical Specialist in November 2015, and that her documentation was correct while the Army’s was outdated.

“It happens sometimes, I’m telling you,” Toney-Finch claimed.

“I am 100 percent disabled, that’s the question,” she went on. “I use a walker, I still don’t have feeling on my right side. This is so getting out of hand… I don’t know why people are pulling up my Army records.”

Officials with the Army’s Human Resources Command told the Times-Union on Friday that they, too, were “unable to verify (from our records) that Sharon Toney received a Purple Heart.” Toney-Finch insisted to the newspaper that “you cannot fake a DD-214,” and said her separation papers were revised to include the Purple Heart after she was discharged.

Toney-Finch did not provide a copy of her medical records for review, and declined to offer names of people she served with who might be able to corroborate her story.

“People right now don’t even want to deal with me,” she told The Daily Beast. “They’re staying away from all this. This is bigger than I thought.”

U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Thomas Schueman, who runs his own veterans’ nonprofit, Patrol Base Abbate, said Purple Heart medals can be purchased at any well-stocked surplus store. Online, Amazon.com offers a “military grade, premium quality full size” Purple Heart for $55.99.

Schueman told The Daily Beast that an authentic Purple Heart comes with a certificate that includes the date the recipient was wounded, and that the Army has a Purple Heart database for personnel officials to “verify whether or not a soldier’s DD-214 reflects the medal.” What’s more, Schueman said, it should be easy for any service member to provide references that shore up their narrative of being wounded in action.

Controversial claim

Toney-Smith was plunged into controversy last week when State Assemblyman Brian Maher, a Republican, took to Fox News to slam the Biden Administration and New York’s Democratic governor for supposedly ejecting a group of vets from a Newburgh, New York, hotel to make way for a load of migrants newly arrived from New York City. Maher called the move “a slap in the face to veterans, to citizens of New York in this country, who are really being cast aside to allow for asylum seekers to come here.”

“At the end of the day, when it comes to this particular situation, you had combat veterans who were homeless, who were told to get out of their hotel,” Maher said. “After one day, Sharon and her team scrambled to find them locations, and right now, what we’ve tried to do is let those veterans know we appreciate them. We’re embarrassed by what’s happened to them, but we have their backs.”

In a social media post, Toney-Finch wrote, “Thankfully, my team and I were able to scramble and find new temporary housing for these veterans. However, this extra trauma has been difficult as we work to gain trust and continue to support these veterans as they reintegrate back into society. Whether you agree or disagree with migrants being housed in the Hudson Valley, I think all of us can agree that this issue should not negatively impact our homeless veterans who have sacrificed so much for our country.”

Questions began to arise when local paper Mid-Hudson News was told by the hotel’s manager that “there were no veterans at the hotel, none were kicked out and no other guests were told to vacate.” Then, on Thursday night, seven homeless men contacted Mid-Hudson News and said they had been promised payment of $200 each to pose as veterans who were kicked out of the hotel in favor of the migrants.

On Friday, Maher issued a mea culpa, claiming that he “believed [Toney-Finch and the veterans] at their word.”

“I had absolutely no knowledge of any wrongdoing and believed that their stories were real until a phone conversation with Sharon yesterday afternoon when she explained to me that this did not happen the way she purported it to,” Maher told Mid-Hudson News.

According to Maher, Toney-Finch admitted she lied about the situation and said she did it “to help the veterans.” She told The Daily Beast that “we didn’t pay any fake actors” and said she wanted to “apologize for any confusion that’s dealing with the veterans and asylum seekers.”

Toney-Finch said she is struggling under the scrutiny and that she is staying with her parents so they can “watch over me.”

“Even though I take care of veterans, I still have my own issues,” she said.

Some of those issues emerged in a public notice published in 2021, when Toney-Finch petitioned to have a previous marriage annulled. In 2011, Toney-Finch, then simply Sharon Denise Toney, “did not have the Mental Capacity to enter into an Agreement of Marriage,” the annulment notice says. “She had served two tours in Iraq… [during] which she was subjected to attacks, accidents, and battle injuries from the enemy the U.S. was fighting. She sustained injuries to her brain (TBI-Traumatic Brain Injury), diagnosed Bi-Polar, diagnosed with PTSD, and a number of other injuries.”

The New York State Attorney General’s Office is now looking into whether any laws were broken, according to the Times Union.

On Friday, an emotional Toney-Finch expressed hope that things would soon “die down.”

“The foundation will always take care of veterans and families,” she told The Daily Beast of her charity, adding, “We are not against asylum seekers… I’m not Republican, I’m not Democrat, I just want to fight for my veterans.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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