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Former corporal admits faking Silver Star

A former Marine corporal and police officer who faked earning a Silver Star during the Gulf War pleaded guilty Tuesday to violating the Stolen Valor Act, U.S. authorities said.

Eric Piotrowski, of Elk Grove, Calif., faces sentencing Nov. 30, authorities said. Under a plea agreement, a felony count of lying to FBI agents investigating the case can be dropped in exchange for him agreeing to serve at least 200 hours of community service in a veterans hospital, said U.S. Attorney Michelle Rodriguez.

“I thought it was fitting that he minister to and care for true war heroes,” Rodriguez said. “It seemed like poetic justice.”

Piotrowski, 41, was arrested by the FBI on May 8. He was honored by the California Department of Veterans Affairs in 2007, with California VA Undersecretary Roger Brautigan presenting him with a Silver Star that Piotrowski said he had earned for actions 16 years earlier during Operation Desert Storm.

Authorities said the medal was never earned and that a citation read by Brautigan — a retired two-star Army general — during an award ceremony was fraudulent. It said Piotrowski earned the medal for actions in February 2007, when he supposedly put himself in harm’s way to allow “breaching units” to move forward, provided suppressive fire to cover an anti-tank team, and guided separated elements of his unit through enemy forces after an assault on Iraqi defenses near Kuwait International Airport.

The citation was wrought with details inconsistent with history and Piotrowski’s own DD Form 214, a document that describes a service member’s assignments and awards upon military separation.

Piotrowski’s service record shows he did not serve in 1st Force Recon and did not earn either version of the Kuwaiti Liberation Medal. The medals were awarded by the Saudi Arabian government to any service member with direct participation in Desert Storm and by the Kuwaiti government for participation in either Desert Storm or Desert Shield.

Piotrowski served from November 1986 to July 1991, according to his Military Report of Separation. His records show that he spent most of his career as a rifleman with infantry units at Camp Pendleton, Calif., but did not see combat.

Marine Corps Times began investigating the case in December, before FBI agents charged Piotrowski. In a Dec. 3 phone interview, he expressed surprise when his citation was questioned, saying he was first notified he rated the Silver Star in 2007 after he sought his military medical records. That prompted an audit of his service record, he said, adding that he later received the citation from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.

Pressed on the details of his purported actions in Kuwait, Piotrowski said he remembered the event, “but I don’t recall the specifics of it.”

“I remember being on a Humvee and providing fire support,” he said. “We were out there trying to provide fire support so that we could move the mission forward. That was it.”

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