James F. Stokes said yesterday that his arrest will not affect his plans to serve on the School Committee.
(GEORGE RIZER/GLOBE STAFF)
Elected officials have been brought down by booze, gambling, and sex scandals, but James F. Stokes, who was sworn in Monday as a member of the Lawrence School Committee, was arrested on a federal charge yesterday, at least partly because he volunteered to be Santa Claus.
When city officials ran a routine criminal record check on Stokes before the Christmas celebration at City Hall, they learned that he had served short sentences in 1964 and 1986 for larceny and forgery. Then reporters began questioning whether Stokes was a US Marine Corps veteran, as he had asserted during his campaign.
Yesterday, around 7 a.m., FBI agents and local police swooped in on the Top Donut shop on the south side of Lawrence and arrested Stokes on a charge that in late 2006 he had forged a Marine Corps discharge document that described him as a recipient of numerous medals.
Stokes, 63, appeared briefly before US Magistrate Judge Joyce L. Alexander in Boston on the misdemeanor charge, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. She released him on a $10,000 unsecured bond.
Outside the courthouse, Stokes declined to discuss the charge but said it would not affect his plans to serve on the School Committee.
"My thought is, I want to get back to Lawrence, and I want to get back on the School Committee tomorrow night," he told reporters yesterday, referring to the next meeting.
Mayor Michael J. Sullivan, who serves as chairman of the seven-member School Committee, said that he would ask the local Board of Registrars whether they could undo Stokes's swearing-in.
"People feel very, very hurt that someone would disguise themselves as a veteran and as someone who has received honors and medals and they weren't even a real veteran," Sullivan said. "I don't think that is the role model for our children that we want to show serving in office."
Stokes's lawyer, William W. Fick, from the federal defender office, said that "a criminal charge is not proof of anything" and pointed out that his client must be presumed innocent. Stokes is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 29.
People in Lawrence, particularly veterans, had raised questions for years about Stokes's military service as he mounted campaigns for elected office, including the City Council, local officials said. But interest in the matter remained limited because he had never won office until recently and had never applied for federal benefits for veterans.
In November 2006, FBI Special Agent Peter K. King said in an affidavit filed with the court, Jorge DeJesus, who directed veterans services in Lawrence at the time, confronted Stokes about his statements about military service. Several days later, the affidavit said, Stokes provided a military discharge document that said he had served in Vietnam in the late 1960s and had received a half-dozen medals, including a Purple Heart.
Francisco Urena, who succeeded DeJesus in February, said yesterday that his predecessor was persuaded by the document and offered to give it back to Stokes. But Stokes insisted that DeJesus keep it on file.
Questions about Stokes's service intensified after he was elected to the School Committee in November.
City officials ran the criminal background check on him after he volunteered to play Santa at a holiday celebration, a routine procedure for anyone who volunteers for the city, Sullivan said. Two days before the Dec. 7 celebration, the check revealed that Stokes had a criminal record.
Within days, family members contacted city officials and the media to urge them to look into his military service statements. City officials gave the FBI a copy of the discharge paper that Stokes had provided more than a year before, and investigators determined that it was phony, authorities said.
King said he had interviewed Stokes at his home in Lawrence on Friday and that Stokes admitted that he had not served in the military.
Urena, a Marine Corps veteran who has served in Iraq, said Vietnam veterans in Lawrence were particularly offended. "They said: 'I lost friends in Vietnam. My uniform was spit upon, and yet he was claiming he was one of us,' " Urena said.
Wilfredo Laboy, superintendent of Lawrence public schools, said: "We as public and elected officials are held to a higher standard for honesty and moral behavior. Stokes violated the public's trust and disqualified himself."
Stokes, for his part, insisted that he had been a good role model, serving as a volunteer for the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation and helping to build a Marine Corps memorial in Lawrence.
Asked whether he was worried about the federal charge, he said: "Everybody's worried. . . . I'm just leaving it up to the courts. Let them decide."
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com. Russell Contreras can be reached at rcontreras@globe.com.
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