Tim Poe – Ex-Wife Never Heard Him Stutter, America’s Got Talent Repsonds

By On 06/06/2012 · 32 Comments · In America's Got Talent

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Following up yesterday’s report that America’s Got Talent’s contestant, Timothy Poe lied about his military service for sympathy. His wife tells the New York Post that she never heard him stutter. Plus, America’s Got Talent producers said they first learned only yesterday that Poe had been lying.

Poe’s ex-wife, Kelly Ballard, said she has never heard her former spouse stutter like he did on the show.

“There were no combat injuries,” said Ballard from her Texas home. “I think he developed a ‘feel sorry for me’ stutter.”

Also, Ballard claims that he was the lead singer in a band called Crawlspace, contrary to Tim’s claim that he never sang until his speech therapist suggested he use singing as therapy for his stutter.

ETA: Ballard tells AGT news

Ballard says she caught her husband cheating in 1991 and after that the relationship headed straight down hill. “I had him arrested in June 2002 for domestic violence. After that, he vanished to Minnesota. He didn’t help out with our son at all.”

She also claims Poe has lied about his education.

“The whole time I have known him, I have never known him to be enrolled in any college,” she tells us. “There is a possibility he may have an associates degree from before I met him. On his Facebook page he says he has a Masters degree in project management.”

Oh, and that bit about how he never sang before a speech patholigist suggested it to help with the brain injury?

B.S., she says: he was the lead singer of a band in Rochester, Minnesota for four years.

Tim Poe was a guest yesterday on You Served podcast. Tim’s interview begins at the 105 mark. He’s sticking to his story, claiming that the army never got the proper paperwork together. He backpedals when confronted by statements that are contrary to his claims, but admits that he embellished his story. Also he admits that he doesn’t have a purple heart or a bronze star.

Howard Stern responds, presumably on this Sirius talk show.

“You could be the most f***ed up liar on the planet, but you never lie about your military service,” said Stern. “It messes it up for every real veteran who comes back from the war. Now no one believes you…This lie is so wrong on so many levels…This really sickens me…What as this guy thinking, that he was never going to be discovered?”

 
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  • http://profile.yahoo.com/XDQP2Y46M5B3OHOKALDDGDHQCM Leandro

    One year later, TMZ is reporting the story as “exclusive”…

    http://www.tmz.com/2012/06/06/americas-got-talent-timothy-poe-stutter-fraud/

  • steph6449

    If you listen to the interview, he refers to his lies about the Purple Heart and Bronze Star as having taken place in context of an event he was attending for a support-the-troops non-profit, presumably with other veterans and active service members.

    I don’t know if that was before he got involved with AGT, or after. But it is way more offensive to me that he lied and masqueraded under false pretenses in that environment, than that he lied to the tv producers and viewers.

    Hard to tell when he started spinning his stories. It may not have been prompted by the tv show at all. It could go back to covering up with family/friends the not very glamorous and possibly humiliating reason he got sent back from his deployment. And/or just a self-aggrandizing, not very reality-grounded personality.

    I think there is something off in his being shipped out of Afghanistan after just a few weeks under a fairly weak explanation. Suspect there were plenty of other behavioral issues or whatever with him at that time that made his unit happy to be rid of him. While not happy I’m sure that his leaving left them short-handed or meant that someone else had to take his place.

    Either way. Ugh.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6M7LOUUEH5UMXGH3IM5KQXO7AA frederick

    Tim Poe said on AGT that he only learned to sing after the injury, and was training his voice in the shower. He had never sung before. Then the next day in an interview with a military website called Youserved he said that the only singing he did was karaoke and that he tried out for a band once. But the evidence shows that he was in a band called Crawl Space. He was the lead singer, and according to his ex-wife for a period of 4 years. Here is a link to Tim singing back in the day with his band. http://webpages.charter.net/crawlspace/bio.htm
    In fact he did an album with the band and Tim appears on the cover of album  http://www.eonline.com/news/americas_got_talent_contestants_combat/321610

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Julie-Caudill/694900254 Julie Caudill

    As  a Marine  myself  … all i have to say is  if he isn’t  right  up there  he is  darn close to  being  in first  place with  Casey Anthony  on the most hated list 

  • webster

    He’s 35, and his wife caught him cheating on her in 1991? I guess he was a rather precocious 14 year old.

  • Anonymous

    I said the second he spoke that it was fake. It sounded like he was doing it on purpose. It’s sad, but I feel somewhat vindicated :0

  • http://twitter.com/salticid1 salticid

    don’t forget wife beater…

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