Phony vet racks up $4,000 bar tab

BARNSTABLE, Mass., Sept. 25 (UPI) -- Police arrested a man who, claiming to be a police officer who was wounded while serving in Iraq, racked up a $4,000 bar tab in Barnstable, Mass.

The man wasn't a vet, never served in the military and wasn't a police officer. Instead, Christopher Lee Proe was an unregistered sex offender from Indiana and wanted on charges in two other states, The Boston Globe reported.

Proe became a fixture at the Pufferbellies, which general manager Mike Travers says prides itself on being friendly to the military. So when Proe wanted to rent a room to celebrate his homecoming with friends, Pufferbellies allowed him to pay with an out-of-town check, eventually running a tab of $4,000, the police report said.

"We treated this guy like he was a war hero," Travers told the Globe. "For somebody to have that much gall, to go that far with something for a few nights of partying, it's hard for me to understand."

Proe was charged with larceny and as a fugitive from justice for failing to register as a sex offender in Indiana. Police said warrants from Virginia and Ohio on Proe also were outstanding.