Two long stand US Defense Contractors have been charged with identity theft and conspiring against the United States government, even being alleged as possible Soviet spies.
Walter Glenn Primrose and Gwynn Darle Morrison, both in their 60’s, have lived a large amount of their lives under the aliases Bobby Edward Fort and Julie Lyn Montague, the names of two infants who died decades ago.
The Texas-based husband and wife defense contractors now face charges of aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit an offense against the US and false statement in an application for a passport. They were arrested on Friday in Kapolei on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
The illegal documents from the children that the couple used allowed them to access secret security clearance with the US Coast Guard and as a defense contractor. Old photos of the pair also revealed them wearing official KGB uniforms, the former Soviet Union’s spy agency that current Russian President Putin was also a member of.
A “close associate” of the duo told Assistant US Attorney Thomas Muehleck that Morrison lived in Romania while it was still part of the Soviet Union. Her lawyer disputed this, saying that she never lived in Romania and that the couple wore the jacket in a photoshoot as a joke when they were younger.
“She wants everyone to know she’s not a spy,” the lawyer said. “This has all been blown way out of proportion. It’s government overreaching.”
The couple is currently being held without bail, with the prosecution claiming they are a high flight risk and that Primrose, who served as an avionics electrical technician in the Coast Guard, was especially skilled in secret communications if released.
One of the families of the children with the stolen ID’s spoke out about the arrest, saying how shocked they were to learn that someone had been living as their dead child for so long.
“I still can’t believe it happened,” said John Montague, 91, whose daughter Julie died in 1968. “The odds are like one-in-a-trillion that they found her and used her name. People stoop to do anything nowadays. Let kids rest in peace.”
There is still no reason given for why the couple would have taken the names of the two children who were more than a decade younger than them. However, it was noted that they married under their original names in 1980, lost their home to foreclosure in 1987, then remarried under their new identities in 1988.
The government has certainly been known for overreaching, but the facts of this case seem like far more than coincidence and cannot be ignored. Do you think the married couple were actually Soviet Spies? Do you think they have continued to spy for Russia and Putin ever since?
