Paul H. Lemmen

Who is Paul H. Lemmen?

Paul H. Lemmen is a military impostor and convicted criminal, specializing in fraud. To various acquaintainces, Lemmen claimed to have been an intelligence officer in the Irish Republican Army before coming to the United States. Later, he changed his story to having joined the United States Air Force in 1972 and serving with the 41st Air Rescue and Recovery Squadron in Saigon for six months in 1974. Other service claims include spending 1980-1988 as an intelligence agent in an AFSOC unit, including an assignment in Beirut in 1983. According to his own accounts in 2003, he was promoted to Brigadier General and retired in 2005.

In an interview with reporter Kevin Maurer of the Fayetteville Observer, he claimed that he was a victim of a smear campaign to discredit him after he had told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that he would no longer participate in intelligence gathering on United States citizens. The article also reported:

Jaimie Brehler, a Durham-based investigator who checks out military imposters, said that Lemmen was the subject of an investigation by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. Chris Grey, a CID spokesman, said only that the command started an investigation of a contractor posing as a military officer in August 2005 and completed the probe in January. No results have been announced from that investigation. It is a violation of federal law to wear military decorations without authorization.