Stuttering country singer on "America's Got Talent" is apparently a fraud.

[sunflowers]

The stuttering country singer who wooed the crowd and judges on "America's Got Talent" is apparently a fraud.



Sgt. Timothy Michael Poe, who introduced himself during the first night of auditions in Austin on Monday night, said he was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while serving with the National Guard in Afghanistan in 2009. He said the brain injury he received was responsible for his stutter, and that he only started singing after it was recommended to him as a form of speech therapy.




“Sgt. Poe’s official military records do not indicate that he was injured by a grenade in combat while serving in Afghanistan in 2009, as he reports,” a spokesman for the Guard said in a widely reported statement.



Exactly what else is not true about the story is unclear. Records indicated that Poe did serve as a supply specialist for the Guard from Dec. 2002 through May 2011, a month of which he served in Afghanistan in 2009.



However, AGTNews adds that his ex-wife, an Air Force veteran, claims Poe is a compulsive liar whom she "never heard have a stutter like (he had on the show)."



On his Sirius radio show, Howard Stern blasted Poe this morning.



"You never lie about your military service," he said. "This lie is wrong on so many levels … This really sickens me."

[3lilpigs]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KDZrpT0KbQ

[3lilpigs]

One thing I noticed in this video (watched it last night before this was updated) was at the end when he was talking to his wife and Nick Canon.......he didn't stutter once!

[sunflowers]

One thing I noticed in this video (watched it last night before this was updated) was at the end when he was talking to his wife and Nick Canon.......he didn't stutter once!

Nick even made reference to that I remember

[BeanieLuvR]

I agree with Howard Stern on this one. It sickens me that he'd lie about something so serious.

[sunflowers]

Troubles continue to pile up for Timothy Michael Poe, the U.S. Army veteran whose successful singing audition was shown on NBC's "America's Got Talent" Monday night.



When the segment about Poe ran on the show, photos were shown supposedly illustrating Poe's time in Afghanistan. But the main photo, of a helmeted soldier toting an M4 carbine in front of mountainous terrain, wasn't Poe at all. It was Staff Sgt. Norman Bone, and it was indeed taken in Afghanistan, but in 2006 -- Poe's time in Afghanistan was one month in 2009.


Timothy Michael Poe on "America's Got Talent."

Poe himself provided the photo of Bone to "America's Got Talent," the show confirmed to TODAY.com.


The photo of Bone is downloadable from the U.S. Department of Defense website, but it is not clear where or why Poe submitted the photo.

In a lengthy interview with the You Served military podcast on Tuesday night, Poe admitted that he had in the past claimed medals he did not earn, and was unable to explain why the Minnesota National Guard says it has no record of him being injured by a grenade in Afghanistan.


Current and former military members on the This Ain't Hell blog were quick to point out that details of the body armor, vehicle and other details from the photo didn't match those used by the Army during the time Poe served in Afghanistan.

TMZ.com used the photo on Thursday with a caption identifying it as Poe, then retracted that caption and posted quotes from an interview with Bone, the real soldier shown in the image.

"First thing that came to my mind was 'Why would this lying (expletive) do this?'" Bone told TMZ. He added, "I'm absolutely furious. Been seeing red all day."

FremantleMedia confirmed to TODAY.com that they do not perform background checks on "America's Got Talent" contestants until they make it to the Top 48, and would not say how far Poe had progressed in the competition.


"We sincerely apologize to U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Norman Bone for using a photo of him in our story on Tim Poe," the show's producers, FremantleMedia, said in a statement. "It was supplied to us by Tim and used on the show in good faith. It has now been removed and will not be used again."

[justme23]

I'm not saying he's guilty or innocent... but, he lives in my city and he sent the local news agencies a bunch of papers showing his injuries and discharge... so, don't hate him just yet, until we know for sure.

[3lilpigs]

Any updates on this yet?

[sunflowers]

Alleging to have served 14 years in the military, Poe told AGT judge Howie Mandel the emotional, reality TV-ready history of what led to his stutter: he'd been hit with a grenade in Afghanistan resulting in a broken back and brain injury, he claimed; meanwhile, photos he submitted from his tour of duty appeared onscreen, showing the 35-year-old father of two in fatigues with a gun.

Except that wasn't him: as previously reported, Staff Sgt. Norman Bone came forward to call Poe's foul and clarify that he's the soldier shown in the photo, which was originally posted on the U.S. Department



Besides Bone, soldiers from Poe's former army unit also say he is lying about his injuries.

“It may not have happened exactly like I said it did," Poe tells the New York Post. "I really do not remember a lot of things since the accident. I remember a blast going off by my head and being in Afghanistan and telling one of the sergeants. It is like a dream . . . I can’t remember things exactly how it happened.”

On Friday, TMZ reported that the NBC reality competition were mulling whether to edit Poe out of the broadcast, and that Mandel were furious with him. Based on Monday's audition, prior to the fake photo revelation, he advanced to the next round.

According to an Army document from April 2011, supplied by Poe to the Post, he has an "injury or disease received in the line of duty as a direct result of armed conflict or caused by an instrumentality of war and incurred in the line of duty during a period of war.”

But an Army spokesperson said he was stationed in Afghanistan for under a month and that his records are not complete.

On Wednesday, Poe confessed to lying about earning medals such as the Purple Heart; he also came clean about his story that he learned he could sing when a speech therapist advised him to try it to help his stutter.

“I do not know how to explain why I answered about never singing before,” he says in his Post interview, which was conducted over email. “I was in a band. But it was before the accident and at the time of AGT."

A rep for the U.S. Army did not respond to THR's request for comment. An AGT had no comment on Poe's future on the show.