Two North Jersey congressmen want the state attorney general to launch a probe of Sussex County Commissioner Bill Hayden to determine whether he should be prosecuted under New Jersey’s Stolen Valor Act, which makes lying about military service a crime.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) and Bill Pascrell (D-Paterson) are seeking an investigation into allegations that Hayden liked about serving as a Navy SEAL, something the Defense Department has been unable to verify.
“Hayden’s actions are insulting and damaging to the brave men and women of our armed forces who risk their lives every day to protect our country,” Gottheimer and Pascrell said in a letter to Attorney General Matt Platkin. We urge you to investigate this egregious breach of trust to the people of Sussex County, our State, and those who have served our great country.”
Hayden’s former wife, his former girlfriend, and other family members have claimed that Hayden claimed to be a Navy SEAL and was shot multiple times while on a classified mission to assassinate Pablo Escobar, the head of a Colombian drug cartel.
“Hayden has repeatedly held himself out to be a veteran, a claim that appears to be patently false,” “He also lied to other New Jersey veterans, and records show that he claimed veteran’s exemptions on his taxes.”
Jocelyn Hayden, his former wife, said that she believed his stories of military heroics during their nine years of marriage and later searched military records to find that he had never served.
She said Hayden “further disrespected the men and women of the armed services by claiming (a) veteran exemption on our marital state taxes.
“As his wife, I believed him to be whom he claimed to be: a combat veteran,” Joceyln Hayden said. “As the daughter of a veteran who lost his life to PTSD when I was 12-years-old, and other family members who served in in our military, this is my way of setting the record straight and allowing for anyone who chooses to pursue a legal case of stolen valor.”
Republican and Democratic elected officials and party leaders have called for Hayden’s resignation.
“It’s important to understand the extent and amount to which County Commissioner Hayden benefitted from his false military status, including whether he received state or federal veterans benefits or tax preferences,” Gottheimer and Pascrell said. “The people of New Jersey who placed their trust in him as a public official deserve to know the answer to these questions.”