Another Eagle Has an Impostor
Last fall we told you about Stephan Pittman, the registered sex offender from Maryland who was impersonating Vince Young. At the time, Pittman was spotted in Manayunk, wooing young girls while pretending to be Young, and extorted various charities by using the backup quarterback’s (good?) name.
Pittman was arrested in Prince George’s County, Maryland, on September 24 and hasn’t been heard from since. He’s listed as released on a Maryland inmate lookup website, but as incarcerated on a sex offender registry.
Anyway, Pittman may or may not have anything to do with this:
According to a Yahoo! Sports story, an impostor is going to great lengths to trick people into believing that he’s Phillip Thomas, the free agent rookie who was signed by the Eagles on Friday:
Somebody has been pretending to be the safety from Syracuse, spinning a story so convincing that the fake Phillip Thomas has appeared on blog posts, conducted radio interviews and tweeted a bogus signing with the Washington Redskins. The fake Phillip Thomas created a Facebook page loaded with pictures of the real Phillip Thomas along with photos from inside Redskins Park. The fake Phillip Thomas even posted a picture of a Redskins playbook that appears to have been taken in a hotel room.
The fake Thomas was in communication with Les Carpenter, who wrote the Yahoo! story, saying that he would soon be a Redskin, a claim denied by a Redskins official… mostly because the real Thomas is, you know, an Eagle.
Not unlike Young’s situation, Thomas' fake is using Facebook to perpetuate his lie and the tale weaves through the D.C. area (Redskins). We’re not sure exactly where Pittman is – a call to the Prince George’s County media relations department didn’t yield a concrete answer – but the similarities in the two stories are striking.
And that includes physical appearances.
Look at this picture of Thomas (left) next to Pittman (right):
We’re speculating… but they don’t not look alike.
The fake Thomas, whether it's Pittman or someone else, seemingly knows his jig is up, though: [Yahoo!]
After meeting the real Phillip Thomas on Friday, I called the fake Thomas on the cell number he messaged me, which was the same one he gave Bradley for the Ball Hogs Radio interview.
"Yes, we talked yesterday," the fake Phillip Thomas said when I introduced myself. His voice was flat with no inflections, unlike the real Phillip Thomas, who has a hint of a Caribbean accent.
I asked if he was in Philadelphia.
"Yes, sir," he replied.
Then I told him I had just met the real Phillip Thomas.
He hung up.
Stay tuned…