Last month Dr. Liane Leedom wrote an article called Fred Brito: A con artist profiled by Dateline. Dr. Leedom’s observations about the Dateline story were:
- Fred fooled many people who should have known better
- Fred fits the profile of a sociopath
- Fred projects positive energy that is nearly euphoric
- Fred has an enormous sense of entitlement
- Fred sought the company of high-status individuals
- Fred doesn’t appear to have a love life
Dr. Leedom’s comments about Fred strike me as being fairly mild. They aren’t the type of comments that a man who agreed to be interviewed by a national investigative television show, or someone who is running for state senator in New Mexico, should get worked up over.
But Fred didn’t like the Lovefraud story. He complained that in publishing it, Lovefraud did not talk to him and resorted to gossip.
Fred Brito’s story
So who is this guy? Here’s what it says on Fred’s website: “Fred Brito made some serious mistakes in his early life which led him to prison. When he was released and unable to find a job honestly due to his record, he fabricated his resume and was hired time and again. Fred Brito’s main focus was to work”¦not to steal. This sets him distinctly apart from other criminally minded con artists.”
Well, maybe. The Los Angeles Times printed a front-page expose of Fred Brito on August 28, 2005. It stated that Fred’s brushes with the law began in 1977, when he pled guilty to stealing $1,000 from a bank where he worked as a teller. He was given probation, broke his parole and fled to Canada, where he was arrested for numerous crimes. In 2002 he was charged with embezzling $600 from a law firm where he worked as an office manager.
But there are no laws against lying on a resume, and in the mid-1980s Fred started inventing identities and credentials. He claims to have been hired for a long list of senior management positions. He also got jobs as a court appointed psychiatrist at Los Angeles Superior Court Office of the Public Defender and as a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona.
In 2005, using the name Federiqkoe DiBritto III, Fred was hired as executive director of development at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, a job that paid $100,000 per year. After a few months he was discovered, fired and arrested. Authorities found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing in his role at UCLA, so they didn’t send him back to jail. But the incident precipitated the LA Times expose about Fred Brito.
Officials at the American Red Cross in Pasadena, however, apparently didn’t read the story, even though was published 10 days after Fred began his new $60,000-a-year job there as a fundraiser. Fred eventually lost that job too.
Fred’s resume
So what is it about Fred’s resume that makes him so appealing? The four-page document claims he is a Ph.D. candidate at the Catholic American University of the Immaculate Conception, which doesn’t exist. Fred claims 24 years of experience with Caritas / Catholic Charities, which does exist, but undoubtedly doesn’t know anything about Fred.
His 14-page curriculum vitae includes a glowing recommendation from Harrison Winslow, who doesn’t exist. The CV lists a phone number for Winslow that goes Fred’s special cell phone. When it rings, Fred, as Winslow, strongly recommends himself for the job.
After all the media exposure, Fred seemed to lay low for awhile. But in 2006 he became Federico Gomez de Maria, and got a job as administrative director and fundraiser at the New Mexico Performing Arts Academy in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Blogger David Markland reported on March 8, 2007 that Brito admitted he was dismissed from the job for “not disclosing his full identity.” Brito then posted a comment stating that he legally changed his name from Fred Brito to Fred Gomez de Maria.
Fred fires back
Well, maybe. He certainly used the name Fred Brito when he contacted Lovefraud.
I posted a comment inviting Fred to tell his side of the story. In the meantime, “Shesaid,” a Lovefraud reader, posted the following: “Brito’s comment is just the ramblings of a lunatic – sociopaths will try to swoop in and distract with nonsense.” She also called Fred “a fake, phony liar, creep and criminal.”
Well, Fred really didn’t like that. He went on the attack against Shesaid, saying that our reader needs counseling. “You stated some severe accusations, as if you know me well,” Fred wrote. “It is a pity that you have never met me personally. If you had, you may have come away with a very different point of view.”
Fred’s comments were held in the moderation queue by the Lovefraud Blog software because he included his e-mail address and his website addresses. He invited us to contact him and find out what he is really all about. I have now released Fred’s comments. You can read them under the nickname “The Benevolent Con.”
WARNING: His attacks are direct and personal. Please DO NOT REPLY with the same type of comments. I am releasing them to illustrate a favorite tactic of sociopaths—the vitriolic offensive against people who don’t believe them.
Fred won’t talk
I sent Fred another e-mail requesting an opportunity to speak with him. Here is his reply:
I am not sure… as you will note… you have a bunch of crazies on your site. I admit… I have made some mistakes… but I have found that your site is very defensive and it appears that there are a lot of SCORNED Women on your site.
Any contribution that I would make would only add fuel to THEIR fire. I did not see that you interjected any moderation of your site. You allow people to rant and rave… and I have already had enough of that.
So I am not sure… what your desire is or your angle… But I don’t think your site is very therapeutic.
I did speak to Fred briefly on the telephone. He did not agree to be interviewed.
Fred says vote for me
But Fred claims we will soon see him on TV again, on 60 Minutes. He also says he is coming out with a book called The Master of Deception, and will be the subject of a movie by the same name.
And, last month Fred announced his candidacy for state senator in New Mexico. His press release asked, “What could stop Fred Brito from continuing to make history as the first ex-offender to be elected to public office?” Fred’s answer: “Absolutely Nothing!”
Yesterday, Fred posted on his blog that his publicist quit.
Perhaps Fred thinks his platform of “giving people a second chance” is enough to get him elected. But if I were in New Mexico, I don’t think I’d vote for Fred.
For a timeline of Fred Brito’s activities, see Fred Brito: Back In the Saddle Again, by David Markland.
Not Fred has got to be Fred.
He uses the same words as on Fred’s site.
I can understand where he sees this as fun… playing with people.
It appears that the sociopathic mind doesn’t believe it can get work as a normal person, won’t be paid enough, etc, has to take shortcuts.
So the mind then does what it has to do to survive and thrive. It appears to be a survival instinct of some kind.
Sort of like Disocciative Idenity Disorder “DID” (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder). The mind invents other identities to do the work the original identity can’t cope with. Hmmm
I wonder if a con was really smart and good, he’d just say he has DID and doesn’t remember… now that would be a good one!
Freddy… Freddy…Freddy ….when are u gonna learn?
These people are tired of retired 10 time losers like urself…
Hey man ..you didnt do a few months in Jail…we’re talking 10 yrs time prison dude.
Con Artists Create Victims where ever they go…You cant give back what you took Freddy.
One question: Why is there never a mention of any women in ur life?
This hasnt been the career of a Boys Town “Counselor” has it Freddy?
One New Tool just for you Kid: Baby Fresh-Alyzer… Just Blow the Tube Freddy.
Ill send you one when I get a chance…Until then…consider urself BUSTED.
Are you serious? This guy is a low-level criminal. What is so important about him that he deserves any of the fame he has gotten? He is a small-time crook.
Wow, he stole $1k once… And got a bunch of jobs he didn’t deserve and made/stole money from them. And got caught right afterward.!
Do you know how many people lie on resumes and have extra phone numbers using apps on their phones to pretend to be a past boss to lie about past job experience?
Anyone thinking this is something interesting must live in a box. This guy is a loser and a bad criminal.
He is addicted to it, but he sucks at it. He is like a drug addict that continues getting busted but does the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Do you want a better story? Go pick up a drug addict off the street and give him $20 to get high and tell you their story.
Well, thank you for educating me, Jason. One of many things I like about this site is that I learn interesting things from it–sometimes even useful things! It doesn’t have to be about psychology, sociopaths, abuse, or any of that; it can be about any topic under the sun. Somebody makes a remark about topic X; I ask myself “Is that true?” or reflect that I don’t know much about topic X; so I go and look it up, and hey presto! I’ve learned something new. You asked us if we knew how many people lie on their resumés; I confess I had no idea how many; so I went and looked it up. It’s staggering! According to one professional estimate, as many as 85 percent of applicants lie about something on their resumés! And the numbers have been increasing over the last few years.
It’s appalling to see such rampant dishonesty, but it is something we ought to know. Employers need to be aware of this and do “due diligence” before hiring anyone. Clearly from Fred Brito’s record, not all of them do. However, 85 percent of job applicants are not psychopaths, as Fred Brito obviously is. It’s more like one or two percent. And I dare say the lies most people tell are relatively small ones. They don’t lie on a grand scale the way professional malefactors like Fred Brito do. There IS a difference!
I’m sorry you found this story so unworthy of mention. What is it about Brito that irritates you so much that you don’t even want to see him exposed for what he is? A petty criminal, yes, but an unusually deft and convincing one. A loser? By my standards, yes. Most of us–I hope!–take pride in living an ethical life, which he never has right from the get-go. But he’s undoubtedly clever, and it’s a shame to reflect that with his talents and gift of the gab he might have had a successful career in some legitimate field of business: as a lawyer for instance, but as a salesman above all. He sabotaged himself with those early crimes that blotted his escutcheon, leaving him with a rap sheet he couldn’t expunge. Still, that’s part of what many paychopaths do. They often take risks without regard to the consequences, not only to others (whom they don’t give a damn about anyway), but even including harm to themselves.
But is Fred Brito really such a “loser”? He’s been remarkably successful at staying out of jail in recent decades. He’s been improving his game as he goes along. He’s still succeeded in landing one lucrative position after another. Even if he gets fired from one job, you can bet he still has another lined up. He’s probably even doing a little real work to justify what they pay him. He’s approaching 65; over his years of “employment” he may even have paid enough into whatchamecallit to qualify for Social Security one day.
So I’m sorry if you found nothing sufficiently instructive, let alone entertaining, to justify posting Fred’s story here. Ho-hum, I guess we can’t please everybody! Speaking for myself, wicked as I may be, I found it howlingly funny to read the outrageous things Fred got away with! That doesn’t mean I’d ever make an idol out of such an awful man, or seek to emulate him–quite the reverse; I have very different values, as most of us do–but I can’t help admiring cleverness, or laughing at the foolishness of people who get taken in by the most ridiculous stories.
Is that so wicked? As the Roman playwright known as “Terence” was famous for saying: “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.” “I am human, and nothing human is alien to me.”
Of course, anything stops being “funny” where there’s true tragedy involved. Whether he’s “petty” or otherwise, there’s nothing “funny” about the kind of criminal con artist who targets an individual and robs him or her of their entire life savings. That’s truly ugly stuff. I will say this in mitigation of Fred Brito’s crimes: tht at least the victims he targeted could afford their losses. A mere thousand dollars? Actually I got ripped off once for rather more than that. But I’m not sore about it, partly because I don’t think those responsible were the kind of callous psychopaths who did it deliberately and knowingly. And partly because I didn’t let them have any more than I could afford to lose! It only shows, as Donna likes to point out, that “anyone” can be a victim of some scam or other!
In fact Fred Brito might be “funny,” pathetic or otherwise, if it wasn’t for one other, thoroughly revolting little thing that I didn’t see mentioned on this site–though I might have missed it. Namely, that in 1974, at the age or nineteen or so. he was arrested for “molesting a boy”–though the charge later got dropped. (Somebody has found Fred Brito significant enough to publish an entire blog on his sordid record; see the link in question.) Pedophilia? Does this relate to Dr. Leedom’s observation that Brito “doesn’t appear to have a love life”? It sounds like he’s a sick perverted creep on top of everything else.
Still, I’d never seen this article before–years before my time–and persons like Fred are worth being informed about.