Another interesting article. Note this article reports that Shields forged a letter from the Governer of Louisiana!
http://www.nj.com/news/times/index.ssf?/base/news-3/118481824789290.xml&coll=5&thispage=1
N.Y. indicts 9/11 responder: W. Windsor man is accused of bilking FEMA out of nearly $40,000
BY DARRYL R. ISHERWOOD, New Jersey On-Line, July 19, 2007
A West Windsor man who rose to prominence with stories of his dog's heroic exploits while searching for victims of the World Trade Center collapse has been indicted in New York for allegedly stealing federal Sept. 11 relief money.
Scott Shields, who has claimed that his Golden retriever Bear was responsible for finding the most victims of any search and rescue dog working the World Trade Center debris known as the pile, allegedly bilked the Federal Emergency Management Agency out of some $38,906 in rental assistance funds, according to the indictment from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Shields' attorney, Jonathan Marks, said yesterday his client is innocent of the charges, which also include mail fraud.
"Scott asserts his innocence and we fully expect we will go to trial and hope we will be vindicated," Marks said.
The charges arose out of a claim Shields filed with FEMA for housing costs he said he accrued while he worked at Ground Zero after the World Trade Center collapse. Shields has said for years that he and Bear were one of the first canine responder teams to reach the pile and that the pair worked for weeks searching for victims.
Marks said FEMA has alleged that Shields lied on his application, saying that he needed housing assistance because of Sept. 11.
"Scott received the money, but he did not make any false representations," he said.
If convicted, Shields could face up to 35 years in prison.
Shields could not be reached for comment on the indictment.
But Shields has been a controversial figure for years. His exploits became legend as he has toured the Northeast, regaling school children and other groups with tales of Bear, who died in 2003, and Theodore, who Shields calls Bear's son.
His Web site includes several pictures of him and Bear at Ground Zero and of him and Theodore during the Hurricane Ka trina rescue efforts.
Shields has parlayed the notoriety into a speaking career and operates a foundation that raises money for search and rescue teams. The foundation has raised more than $75,000 of which about $20,000 has been donated to search and rescue groups.
But interviews with several people who know Shields or who have had contact with him in past years paint a different picture than the one he portrays of himself.
According to several people, Shields started out with good intentions and has done some good things, but has become an "opportunist" who has fabricated much of the public portrait of himself and who has taken in dozens of organizations, officials and media outlets, including The Times, which published an interview with him in 2005.
"Most of what this guy says is not true," said Chris Lyons, a search-and-rescue specialist who met Shields while searching for a young girl in 2003. Lyons has devoted a lot of his personal time to debunking what he calls the myth that Shields has created for him self.
Nancy West, who co-authored a book with Shields about his relationship with Bear, detailing the dog's search-and-rescue efforts after Sept. 11, discontinued publishing the book and cut off contact with Shields after questions were raised about some of the information Shields told her.
In an authors' note West published on Amazon.com, West at tempts to debunk some of the claims Shields has made, including the assertion that Bear, who Shields said was a trained search- and-rescue dog, found live victims in the World Trade center debris and found the most bodies during the recovery effort.
"Bear did NOT accompany Scott to the WTC to do search work. He was there because he was always at Scott's side," she said in the authors' note.
Retired New York City Police Lt. Dan Donadio, a former K9 officer whose teams led the recovery efforts at Ground Zero, said he encountered Shields during the first hours of the search effort, but soon asked him to take Bear off of the pile of debris.
"I made a visible observation of the dog and based on that I told him I didn't want to see him on the pile," said Donadio in an interview yesterday. "(Bear) wasn't a trained rescue dog and we couldn't take a chance on rescuers going on false indications (of victims).
Donadio said he later saw Shields in "the vicinity" of the pile, but said Shields left after only a "few days."
Shields has also claimed that Bear was responsible for finding the most victims of the collapse, a claim that Donadio's account of his encounter with Shields and Bear disputes and which West says is patently false.
His efforts during the Katrina rescue efforts have also been called into question by some.
On his Web site (www.bearsearchandrescue.com), Shields posted a letter that he said is from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco requesting Shields' help with the search-and-rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina. The letter requests that Shields deploy search-and-rescue teams under his command to southeast Louisiana.
But a spokesman for the governor said yesterday the letter is not official and is on letterhead that does not belong to the governor.
"We can comfortably say that the letter was not prepared by us," the spokesman said.
Shields did not return phone calls for comment on the allegations of fabrication.
According to court records, his trial on the fraud and theft charges is set for Nov. 5.
Re: Scott Sheilds - a con artist and scum bag
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Re: Scott Sheilds - a con artist and scum bag
Re: Scott Sheilds - a con artist and scum bag
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