A registered sex offender has allegedly been pretending to be Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Vince Young in order to solicit fraudulent charitable donations and make sexual advances toward young women in the Washington area and elsewhere for at least five months, according to Mr. Young’s sports management agency and a series of emails obtained by the Washington Times.
The man was identified by the agency and on Mr. Young’s Twitter feed as Stephan Pittman, 33, of Fort Washington, Md.
Mr. Pittman was placed on probation for the sexual assault of a 23-year-old woman in Texas in 2009, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Sex Offender Database.
EAG Sports Management CEO Denise White said that both her company – which represents Mr. Young – and the National Football League quarterback’s charitable foundation have been contacted since late May by “more than two dozen people” complaining about the impostor.
“This guy has studied Vince like the back of his hand,” Ms. White said. “He tells people to go to Vince’s website, gets them to donate to Vince’s foundation but write the check to him. He says he will give them a percentage [of money] in return.
“He also is going after women and having sex with them saying that he is Vince. He definitely hits the club circuit. He is big time into that, partying, getting these women there. Buying drinks and acting like he is a big baller.”
Prince George’s County Police spokesperson Henry Tippett said that no complaints have been filed against Mr. Pittman and that police are not investigating the impostor claims because no victims have come forward.
Ms. White said that Mr. Young has filed a police report in Houston, his hometown. She also said that her agency has contacted NFL Security, NFL Players’ Association security and the FBI.
Prince George’s police said that they have spoken to NFL Security.
Denisse, a 27-year-old student from Alexandria, Va. who asked that her last name not be published, contacted Ms. White in July and claimed that she previously was contacted on Facebook by a man identifying himself as Mr. Young.
Denisse said she met the man at the Cadillac Ranch restaurant at National Harbor and that he discussed Mr. Young’s charitable foundation.
“He was a little out of shape, not that athletic,” she said. “But he was such a gentleman. Very nice. Funny. He wore good clothes that made him look like a celebrity. There were some guys in suits in the restaurant. He said they were his security guys.”
According to Denisse, the man subsequently offered to make her a “3 percent” owner of his charitable foundation and pay her $12,000 a month if she invested $5,000 with him – an amount that later dropped to $3,000.
“Then he told me not to worry if I didn’t have the $3,000,” she said. “Just give him $2,000.”
When Denisse told the man she had a pregnant friend who was being treated for lung cancer, the man asked to visit the friend in the hospital. Denisse said she drove the man to a Northern Virginia hospital, where he met and took pictures with the ill woman and her family.
Denisse later emailed the photos to Ms. White.
“He brought a bear and flowers for my friend,” Denisse said. “He was such a good actor. But half my heart didn’t believe him.”
Afterward, Denisse said, she received a phone call from her friends. They told her that the man was not the real Mr. Young, and that an online search led them to believe he was Mr. Pittman.
Denisse then confronted the man while the two were in her car.
“He looked at me, said I was a very special girl,” she said. “He acted like he was in love with me. He said, ‘I’m sorry, I know I lied to you, but I am a friend of Vince Young.’ He told me all these stories of how Vince Young had authorized him to use his name because he can’t find a woman to love him. He started crying.
“I gave him a hug and said, ‘You lied to me and I never want to see you again.’ He wanted to make sure that I forgave him. I said, ‘I forgive you.’ Then he left. I never saw him again. I just wanted to get him out of my car.”
Emails to Ms. White’s company and Mr. Young’s charitable organization complaining about the impostor obtained by the Washington Times include:
• A Cleveland woman alleging that she met a Young impostor at a District nightclub and attempted to make a $1,500 donation to Mr. Young’s foundation, but instead wrote a check to “The Pittman Group,” a company supposedly working with the real charity.
• A Maryland woman alleging that a Young impostor that she met at the District’s Lima Lounge has been harassing and threatening her, and that she fears for her physical safety.
• A Philadelphia man alleging that he had been “hanging out” with a Young impostor in local and Philadelphia area bars during the summer. The email included pictures of the man – who is not Mr. Young – and a phone number for the man with a District area code.
• A District man alleging that a Young impostor approached a female friend at Georgetown’s L-2 Lounge and asked her to invest $10,000 in his charitable foundation in exchange for an interest return of 2 percent.
“We had another young woman come forward this morning and tell us that, ‘My gosh, this man is asking for money from me and wants to meet today,’” Ms. White said. “She just saw the news last night.”
Mr. Young went public with the impostor story on Monday. According to Ms. White, his foundation and management company initially began receiving complaints in late May.
“In the beginning, the women [contacting us] did all the legwork,” she said. “All of them came back with the same picture, the sex offender information. I actually talked to [Mr. Pittman] on the phone back in June, with the same phone number all the ladies had for him.
“I told him to stop posing as Vince and that we were on to him. He tried to convince me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that I had the wrong person.”
Ms. White said that following the phone call, her company and Mr. Young’s foundation did not receive any complaints for roughly a month.
“Then we started getting phone calls last week from numerous females and a couple of males,” she said. “We realized he was back at it, but worse. It was the same M.O., same face, same information the previous girls had. We went public to get him to stop.”
In a telephone interview with District television station WUSA9, a man claiming to be Mr. Pittman denied impersonating Mr. Young.
The station also reported that a photo published by the Washington Examiner’s web site on Sept. 11 identifying a celebrity partygoer at L-2 Lounge as Mr. Young was confirmed by Mr. Pittman’s father to be a photo of his son.