Actually not Fred Brito...

...but George Santos certainly SOUNDS like Fred Brito.

After being caught lying about his resume about his employment history and college education, the recently elected Republican congressman is playing the victim card, and using other Fred Brito-ish tactics such as downplaying numerous embellishments on his resume saying doing so is not criminal, and saying "a lot of people overstate in their resumes".

While certainly not as brazen as Brito, Santos did use the dead mother excuse for not responding to these stories in due time... he claimed he was recognizing the sixth anniversary of his mother's death. (Brito once listed on his resume that he was taking care of his elderly parents, even though they had passed away years prior).

More at. CNN.

Taos IHOP manager revealed to be Fred Brito

While Covid-19 is dominating the news cycle around the world, in Taos, New Mexico, Fred Brito has managed to become a front page story.

At the top of this week's Taos News is a photo of Brito with the headline, "The pancake con man." In the article, reporter John Miller interviews Brito about his long history of being "one of the more notorious con men living in the United States today," and ultimately how he ended up being hired to work at their local IHOP using a falsified resume and an assumed name.

The article is partly the result of a tip this blogger sent their way last month. We discovered Brito had been working as General Manager of the IHOP under the name Max Gomis DeMaria. Miller gives credit to this blog for tipping them off, but overlooks that one month ago the Taos News had already published an article about "Max Gomis DeMaria", and that they deleted from their website soon after they were alerted to his identity.

The March 5 article was called "Breakfast and a new beginning: IHOP starts fresh", praising the work of their general manager, accompanied by a photo of restaurant staff and management, including  Fred Brito.

A screenshot of the article as it appeared online -- Fred Brito is on the far left.

According to the article, "Max" was hired by IHOP last September to help improve a restaurant that was facing customer service and staffing challenges, and that "Gomis DeMaria and his team are steadily reaching the peak of excellence that is their goal." While the print edition labeled the article as an "advertorial" (a paid advertisement that otherwise appears to be an article), the online version did not indicate this.

Would you trust this man with your family fortune?

We have learned that Fred Brito eventually moved on from the Wingate in Dallas, and according to an anonymouse tip has moved up to selling "luxury vacation homes" in Oklahoma.

Our source says he's been working in Oklahoma since July, 2018, but "bailed" after they "just figured him out yesterday."

The tipster, who provided us with this photo, tells us Fred Brito had been using the name Max DeMariio, who is listed as the General Manager of The Residence Club at Carlton Landing in Lake Eufaula, Oklahoma.

The Residence Club is the "luxury vacation home" arm of a new residential development, selling properties from $59,000 to $139,000.

On assorted paperwork Brito filled out for the job he listed as having previous addresses in Dallas, only three hours away by car.

Would you trust this man with your room keys?

Fred Brito aka Gomez de Maria aka Max Gomez.

We recently confirmed a tip that for the past few weeks Brito was hired by the Wyndham chain of hotels as a general manager for the Wingate by Wyndham Dallas/Las Colinas, using the name "Max Gomez."

Brito was recognized by a tipster who saw him dining at a nearby Benihana on multiple occasions.

Shortly after he was hired, reviews popped up for the hotel specifically applauding "Max Gomez" from accounts that had just been created, and reviews of only the hotel and adjacent restaurants... including the aforementioned Benihana.

As of this writing, we still believe Brito is still working at the Wingate hotel, so check in at your own risk.

Attention Law Enforcement Professionals!

Please note that you're always welcome to contact me directly at unsomnambulist at gmail dot com for any questions about this blog or the subject.

Fred Brito, er, "C. H. Patel" corrects the record on his time with National Hospitality Services and Staybridge Suites

Fargo area journalist Barry Amundson, who reported on Fred Brito's hiring and firing there, forwarded me an email signed by "a mere family friend of Fred Brito",  that claims to correct some details on Amundson's reported story. Signed "C.H. Patel", the email plays like a winning hand of Fred Brito bingo. Some bullet points from the letter:

• Lying on a resume is not a crime.
• The reason Brito has to lie about his resume is because otherwise nobody would hire an ex-felon.
• A "tell-all book" is coming soon.

(As for me, this isn't the first time someone who is "not Brito" has come to Brito's defense accusing me of crazy stuff. In 2007, when I first reported on Brito for the Metblog's flagship site blogging.la, an anonymous individual accused me of getting them drunk and stealing their watch. Now, Brito - er - Patel, claims I'm using a fake name and that I've tracked him by accessing his credit reports.)

The email also claims Brito was hired only after a "so-called exhaustive background check" and that he had been employed for 40 days before being fired... contrary to what his employer claimed to reporter Barry Amundson. 

Full letter after the break...

Fred Brito surfaces in Fargo, ND

Coincidence or CYA*-incidence?

Weeks ago, this blogger learned that Fred Brito was working for the Staybridge Suites Hotel in Fargo, ND. This blogger waited to gain some additional verification, and once it came in, we notified an employee with the management company late last week. Less than 24 hours after I contacted them, it appears Brito was fired.

We tipped off Fargo area reporter Barry Amundson on the story, and he writes about it here. He was able to confirm that, in fact, Brito, using the name Luca Gomez DeMaria, had been hired by a local hotel operator, and then let go in recent days. Alas, it sounds like the HR company is taking credit for discovering Brito's background before he was actually put to work:

Sarah Koustrup, executive vice president for a hospitality services company in Fargo that had hired him, quickly uncovered Brito’s scam.
Brito was in a training program when they discovered he had given the company a falsified resume, Koustrup said...
The company executive wanted to emphasize that her firm has a stringent hiring and resume checking system.
"We have a system of checks and balances and we caught it fast," she said. "We're very careful on who we hire."

So, if this is to be believed, Koustrup, Executive Vice President of National Hospitality Services, discovered Brito's false resume on the very same day I tipped off another executive with her company.

On December 29, I sent a message to Julie Brown, VP of Sales and Operations with National Hospitality Services, notifying her that her company was employing a conman. In her first response, she wrote back, "HR completes background checks before they hire."

The following Monday, she offered to put me in touch with someone with her Human Resources Department, to which I replied would be appreciated. Her next response was, "Thank you for letting me know. I cannot speak about employee related questions on behalf of our company for legal reasons. Based on that, I am unable to continue to respond to you."

To be clear, my goal isn't to be personally credited for this. The purpose of this site is to keep more people from being victims of a conman. But if an HR company is going to lie about their hiring practices instead of acknowledging an error and addressing steps to keep this from happening again, they are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

*CYA = Cover Your Ass.

Fred Brito becomes talk of the town in Eugene

News of Fred Brito aka Gomez di Maria's most recent firing in Eugene, OR has been big news for the small city of 160,000 residents. After his employers with the Downtown Athletic Club discovered Brito had been hired using a largely fabricated resume, an insider tipped off both this blog and multiple news outlets.

Camilla Mortensen with the Eugene Weekly broke the story first. She was able to contact and briefly converse with Brito, who, of course, told her that "the blame for hiring someone who lies on their resume lies with his employer." As is his modus operandi after being caught, Brito also told Mortensen that he was working on a book about his cons (he's made this same claim on repeated occasions over the past decade, most regularly after being caught).

Other outlets to cover Brito's firing include:

• The Eugene Register-Guard
• CBS affiliat KVAL
• ABC affiliate KEZI, which used a photo of Brito credited to "The Paula Bergan" agency... which doesn't exist and is one of Brito's many fictitious associates he's created over the years.

It seems that Brito immediately ditched town after being fired, just as he did in Wyoming a few months prior. 

On the Weekly article, a 540 word comment was posted using the name Fred Brito calling reporters like Mortensen and this blogger cowards and stating, "you are not getting a rise out of me."

"This latest Eugene Weekly article is yet just another exercise of wasting time. Will it stop Fred Brito? Not at all," the commenter wrote.

Fred Brito sinks to new low by claiming to be taking care of long deceased parents

Fred Brito, going by the name G. "Carlo" diMaria, was fired this week by the Downtown Athletic Club in Eugene, OR where he had worked for three months as a general manager. According to our source, "he created such a hostile workplace that several of the tenured staff left in that time."

According to the source, the reason for his release was his employers discovering he had lied about his background and experience on his resume.

Among the false claims were that he had a more than 20 year work history with the "Southwest Hospitality Corporation."

Most shocking, however, is that Brito claimed that he had a gap in resume from 2012 to 2015 when, he stated, he "Relocated to Vancouver, Washington to care for my ailing parents until their passing in 2015."

According to previous statements made by Brito in news reports, his mother died in 2006 in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

From Burgerville to Wyoming, Fred Brito can't catch a break

Fred Brito made televised news again this month after being fired for "performance issues" while working at the Parkway Plaza motel in Casper, WY. He'd only been on the job for three weeks, working under the name Carlo Dimaria. According to his employer, it was only after he'd been let go that they'd discovered his long criminal history and repeated use of bogus resumes and fake names.

For Cheyenne, this was big enough news to make it to local TV news:

For readers of this blog, this, of course, is nothing shocking, and at this point, barely worth mentioning except for making it on the air of an ABC affiliate.

That said, it's not like this blog doesn't still get the occasional tip and keep up with Brito, such as where he was before moving to Wyoming.

Late last year, we learned he'd moved from Texas to Oregon, where his resume passed the muster of the HR department at restaurant chain Burgerville, landing him a management job in the Beaverton area. Shortly after Thanksgiving, the company discovered Brito's actual name and background and promptly let him go.

We hear Brito has retreated back to Texas.

Fred Brito not a fan of employment agencies that don't use his fake resume to find him work

Oh, this is precious:

In July, Fred Brito posted on his Yelp page a negative review for a Goodwin Hospitality, an employment agency, that wouldn't return his inquiries, calling them "a fraud."

He says that he had been with them "for a while."

Fred Brito can no longer claim to even be the Dairy Queen

Fred Brito had gone a long way from his glory days of claiming to be "The Great Pretender" where he conned his way into high profile, high paying jobs that earned him headlines. Now, he can barely keep his ruse up long enough to hold onto gigs in the food service industry.

In late May 2015, he was canned from a job as an area manager for Dairy Queen in the Texas Panhandle. When the employee that discovered his his lies confronted him about it, Brito attempted to have the employee fired. Alas, this didn't work, and the company sent a notice out warning employees about him and asking to be notified if he evr returned. Instead of fessing up to his con, he told at least one other employee that the reason he was leaving is because he had been offered a position in Dallas.

Prior to this, he was working in Waco for Aramark, a food services provider.  And back in January 2013, he was employed as a bowling alley food service manager in Euless, TX. In both cases, his criminal histories had been discovered by legitimate employees.

Fred Brito cons his way into International House of Pancakes

The Kansas City, KS IHOP where Brito allegedly worked.

Online chatter indicates Fred Brito has once again proven to be "the great pretender" by landing his biggest job yet: as manager of an IHOP.

It appears Brito was hired, then fired, last September at a Kansas City, KS location of the nationwide chain. One online commenter claims that he made life "a living hell" for the night staff, and even fired a number of employees. Before his real background was discovered, he boasted of being friends with Dr. Phil, the commenter wrote.

We're looking for more details behind his time at IHOP. Please email unsomnambulist@gmail.com or leave a comment with any info you're able to share!

UPDATE: I was just able to confirm that Brito was hired by at this IHOP using the name "Gomez de Maria" which Brito claimed he has legally changed his name to. According to the person I spoke with, Brito did a wonderful job as a manager there, and was hired after receiving a positive referral from an IHOP in Texas where Brito had previously worked as a manager.

According to the person I spoke with, after working at this IHOP for "two or three weeks" a fellow employee had called police to report Brito. They did not charge him with a crime, but Brito apparently left the job due to the embarrassment, according to my source.

Management said they have spoken with Brito and have offered to rehire him, and that he said, "he's thinking about it."

Discovery Channel repeats Fred Brito's lies as facts

As mentioned, Fred Brito even has a history of lying about his lies. While he's notoriously conned his way into numerous positions, he's even lied about the extent of his cons.

Case in point: in spite of his numerous claims, there is no evidence he ever conducted a symphony orchestra. Sure, it may make for good TV, but so would any evidence to support that Brito is anything more than a pathological liar.

Journalist Roger McBain of The Evansville Courier Press in Illinois took issue after a Discovery TV episode of "I Almost Got Away With It" regurgitated the conman's claim that he "posed as Frederico Gomez, a fictitious Mexico City music conductor, to get a guest gig conducting the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra on Sept. 17, 1998."

That was news to me. And it was news to Alfred Savia, music director for the Evansville Philharmonic since 1989.
Savia said he'd heard stories for several years about someone claiming to have duped the orchestra into a guest conductor's gig, but he'd never heard any details.
If anybody from the show had bothered to contact the Philharmonic about the incident, however, Savia could have told them that nobody by that name has conducted the Evansville Philharmonic at any time during his tenure, and that no concert took place on that date.
A look at the calendar reveals that Sept. 17, 1998, was a Thursday, nine days before the orchestra's gala Sept. 26 debut performance in The Victory.

Of course, TV programs would likely stop paying Brito to tell his "story" on TV if they just had to stick with established facts, including Brito's repeated history of making threats to anyone who calls him out on his lies. These threats escalate Brito's con's from harmless and elevate him to something other than a pathological liar: it also makes him a sociopath.

Dallas staffing company fired Brito after hiring him under false name

Last February, senior staff at the national staffing company HotelPro were alerted that the man known as "Gomez de Maria" they had hired months prior as the operations manager for their Dallas, TX office was actually conman Fred Brito. In the role, Brito led local recruiting and staffing of countless individuals in assorted support roles at local hotels, such as "Housekeeping, Laundry, Banquet, Food and Beverage personnel."

 HotelPro's website claims that employee screening is one of the services they provide, it appears that in the case of their internal management positions, this one slipped through the cracks.

 Senior staff claimed that while learning of his true identity was the trigger to fire Brito, they claimed his work performance was not up to par and they were planning on replacing him soon regardless.

 While at HotelPro, Brito used his company phone line and office facilities to promote and hold his "Power2BU" seminar.

Fred Brito and Troy Aikman's Superbowl ring

A minor controversy broke out on a Dallas, TX sports blog after one of its writers learned that "convicted criminal" Fred Brito claimed on his website to own Troy Aikman's 1993 Superbowl ring, claiming he won it at an auction.

After The Landry Hat wrote about this, Brito emailed them to say it wasn't true and that someone had hacked his site to make the allegation.

In the end, it turned out the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback still had his Superbowl ring.

Fred Brito on Dr. Phil episode: Faking It

Dr. Phil McGraw catches Fred Brito in lie after lie on national television.

In the episode, McGraw invites a couple who were "married" by "Father Brito" to confront him in the hopes of an apology for deceiving them into believing they were married by a real priest.

Before the show, Brito had told the producers he had written a book. On air, he attempts to dodge the revelation that he plagiarized the entire book.

Dr. Phil cuts down Brito repeatedly, who claims that his deceptions are over. "That was the past," Brito says.

In a particularly chilling moment, Dr. Phil shows Brito an index card with information about Fred so sensitive he doesn't even discuss it on air. What bit of Fred Brito's past is so damning that not only does Dr. Phil hesitate to mention it, but it even shuts up Fred Brito?

Fred Brito on Dateline NBC: The Ultimate Con Artist

Dateline NBC found Fred Brito's exploits so compelling that they devoted an hour of prime time network television to him.

Josh Mankiewicz interviews Fred Brito and people he's conned over the years. The report covers as far back as 1974, when Brito was charged with molesting a young boy, his convictions for embezzlement and auto theft, and up to the present.

Brito tells Mankiewicz essentially the same thing that he told the LA Times two years prior - that his days of lying are over. Brito says, "Fred Brito, conman, is no longer. The old Fred didn’t get me anywhere."

Mankiewicz closes the hour by noting that months after his interview, Brito was hired and fired from the New Mexico performing arts academy.

Fred Brito story to air Tuesday night on Dateline NBC

Proof that everything Fred Brito says isn’t a lie: the one hour Dateline NBC episode about him that he’s been hyping for over a year is scheduled to air this Tuesday, April 24th, at 8pm. From the official site:

Josh Mankiewicz takes viewers inside the mind of someone who’s not just a con man, but also a world-class imposter who has reportedly tricked a state senator, The Red Cross, celebrities, a prestigious medical school and even the Catholic Church.

It will be interesting to see what angle they take, but based on inside tips and a quote from Mankiewicz published last month, I don’t think Brito will be portrayed as heroic:

One of the confounding things about Fred’s story is he has told so many lies to so many people over so many years that even he can’t remember what is true or not.

Fred Brito, now living in Las Cruces, New Mexico, was working in a high paying fund raising position at UCLA in 2005 when he was arrested, and fired, when his employers learned he was hired using an alias and made no mention he was on parole. A couple months later, Brito was again fired from another well paid job doing fundraising with the American Red Cross in Pasadena, where again he was using a false name. Surprisingly, he was able to work there for a month after the LA Times ran a front page expose about him.

The Brito “saga” is indeed fascinating, as the above is merely the tip of the iceberg. I have a timeline of Brito’s exploits on a previous post, with follow up entries here, where I discovered he was leaving comments accusing me of getting him drunk, trying to have sex with him, and stealing his watch… here, where I break the news that he was effectively fired again in New Mexico, from another fundraising gig (albeit a low paying, part time one), for being hired under another assumed name… and here, where the local Las Cruces newspaper finally catches up with what I’ve been reporting here.

On Fred Brito’s current blog “How To Catch a Con”, he boasts of being the “World Renowned Master of the Con” and “The Benevolent Con”, and offers to give seminars to teach people how to proactively keep from hiring guys like him, and provides a list of his accomplishments in decepting employers from the National Kidney Foundation to A Place Called Home (a charity assisting “at-risk” youths).

Article originally posted at L.A. Metblogs.

Fred Brito fired again for using a false name

Ex-felon threatening legal action against newspaper for writing about writing about him

Last Friday, Fred Gomez, aka Federico B. Gomez de Maria, was fired from his position as an administrative director and fund raiser at the New Mexico Performing Arts Academy in Las Cruces, NM, where he’d been working since last year. Fred Brito admitted that he was dismissed for “not disclosing his full identity.”

Representatives at the Academy were hesitant to comment on the situation, citing that Fred Brito has threatened to sue them for wrongful termination.

Los Angeles readers will recall that Brito made local headlines in August, 2005 after he was fired from UCLA for falsifying his resume and disclosing his previous convictions for embezzlement and theft, along with a lengthy history of gaining employment using false credentials, including work as a Roman Catholic priest and other fundraising positions. At the time the LA Times printed the front page story about him, he had already found work with the American Red Cross in Pasadena, who fired him a month later for, again, falsifying his credentials and not disclosing his criminal history. (click here for a timeline of Fred Brito’s “employment and conviction” history)

According to a statement currently available on Fred Brito’s blog*, the Las Cruces Sun will be publishing their own front page story about Fred Brito on March 9th. The statement goes on to attack the newspaper for its motives, and contends author of the article, who he names as Jennifer Kistler, “is an young novice aspiring reporter and would give anything to capture the “golden goose egg” on her personal road to fame and glory by exploiting and sensationalizing people’s personal life struggles with total disregard for ethics and journalistic professionalism.”

The statement dismisses the 2005 incidents in Los Angeles as “an old story” and makes no reference to his more recent firing in Las Cruces. Also stated is the “Gomez de Maria family’s” intention to sue the Las Cruces Sun for “intent to disparage and harm him with malice and without just cause.”

In addition, Fred Brito’s admission of the firing from the New Mexico Performing Arts Academy, originally posted on March 3rd, has since been removed from his blog.

It should also be noted that last October, the Las Cruces Sun printed two stories about a “Fred Gomez” with accompanying photos that match Fred Brito’s, including one story about a “check scam” that “Fred Gomez” said he’d nearly fallen victim to.

Previous coverage of Fred Brito reemerging in Las Cruces.

*Post deleted after this entry was originally written.

This article originally posted at L.A. Metblogs.