A Long Island man who claimed to have a Purple Heart transferred $81,798.31 from a local American Legion organization into his own checking account after using altered military records to join the group, Suffolk County prosecutors allege.
David Agtsteribbe, 58, was taken into custody two days before Veterans Day. The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office disclosed the arrest Tuesday.
According to the office, the records he used to qualify for membership in the Hampton Bays American Legion helped him become its finance officer.
The Hampton Bays group supports veterans and service members. The district attorney’s office says Agtsteribbe joined in 2021 and began moving money out of the organization’s accounts the following year, in 2022.
The office alleges that money deposited in his checking account paid for bills, Amazon orders, trips and streaming subscriptions. The expenses also included clothing, accessories, leisure activities and a private business membership program.
Agtsteribbe allegedly presented himself as a combat veteran who had been wounded and decorated for his service.
Prosecutors described a military record that ended after roughly one year, with a bad-conduct discharge in 1988. He held the rank of private when he was discharged.
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In 1987, he had faced a court-martial and pleaded guilty to taking money from another soldier.
The later paperwork allegedly depicted his discharge as honorable and listed a higher retirement status. Prosecutors said the retirement designation may have helped him get free health care and other benefits.
District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney called “fabricating a military record and claiming honors you have never earned” particularly despicable.
The district attorney said Agtsteribbe exploited the trust of veterans who had earned their military honors. In his statement, Tierney described the alleged theft as “a shameful abuse of trust” and pledged to prosecute the case.
Prosecutors traced applications and memberships at other veterans groups back to 2019, two years before Agtsteribbe joined the Hampton Bays organization. They identified the Military Order of the Purple Heart as one of the groups where he allegedly obtained membership.
The Town of Southampton also received what prosecutors describe as falsified discharge papers in 2023 and 2024.
They allege Agtsteribbe submitted the documents in an effort to get a parking permit for people with disabilities and avoid a $50 resident permit fee.
The charges include grand larceny in the second degree and criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree.
Agtsteribbe also faces two counts of offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree and three counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
Prosecutors say he faces 25 years to life in prison as a persistent felony offender if convicted on the most serious count.
Citing his criminal history and the new charges, prosecutors asked for bail of $100,000 in cash, a $200,000 secured bond or a $1 million partially secured surety bond. They argued that substantial bail was needed to ensure he returned to court.
In a separate case in Tennessee, police were seeking to identify a man who repeatedly punched Navy veteran Dallas Mathis in the face at an East Nashville gas station.
Part of the June 24 assault was recorded by a surveillance camera, and detectives asked for help recognizing the suspect from the images.
The Navy veteran, who is in his 80s, suffered multiple facial fractures and faced surgery, according to his granddaughter, Rebecca Johnson. She went to a hospital in Hendersonville after hearing that he had been attacked.
He was sitting in his SUV at the Shelby Avenue station when a stranger came up to him. “That’s when he hit me,” the veteran recalled, after telling the man he meant him no harm.
Investigators say Mathis had driven his 40-year-old granddaughter to the station to meet someone. She walked up to a four-door sedan, and an argument broke out over money she allegedly owed.
Mathis remembered being with his granddaughter, though he did not recall speaking with a Metro detective.
Johnson described her grandfather as “unarmed, elderly, and vulnerable” and said he had been sitting in his vehicle when he was attacked. She questioned what anyone stood to gain from the assault.
Police say the man suspected of throwing the punches left before officers reached the station and had yet to be identified.
In Maryland, police identified Kelachi Amadi as the suspect in an attack on a Vietnam War veteran at a Bladensburg laundromat. He was in custody on charges of second-degree attempted murder and malicious wounding.
The veteran, 76-year-old Edwin Salvator Gonzalez, was painting window art ahead of Mother’s Day at the Bladensburg 24 Hour Wash and Dry, according to his family. His relatives said he was on the job as a contractor when he was struck.
Police placed the assault between noon and 1 p.m. on a Monday.
His family described the attack as unprovoked. According to his son, the assailant approached from behind.
The son said his father took at least two blows to the head from a crowbar. The veteran remained hospitalized with injuries that included a blood clot and cuts that required more than 100 stitches.
