By Mark Hosenball and Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A former spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday pleaded guilty to orchestrating an elaborate scheme in which he generated millions of dollars by falsely claiming to be a covert intelligence officer.
Garrison Courtney, a DEA spokesman from 2005 to 2009, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a court hearing before U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady in Alexandria, Virginia.
Courtney, 44, defrauded at least a dozen companies of over $4.4 million by posing as a Central Intelligence Agency officer, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Courtney claimed that the companies needed to hire him to create what he described as “commercial cover” masking his supposed CIA affiliation, prosecutors said.
O’Grady said he would hold a hearing later this year to determine Courtney’s prison sentence.
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)
