Judge orders man who was in D.C. during riots to be held for alleged threats

SHERMAN -- Using the name ColonelTPere, he wrote on Parler that patriots like him should launch an armed hunt for Democrats and other “traitors” at the Capitol.

But Troy Anthony Smocks, a 58-year-old convicted fraudster from Dallas, never served in the military. That, however, hasn’t stopped him from repeatedly posing as an Army officer and federal agent over the past two decades, even donning a full dress uniform with medals he didn’t earn, according to federal court records.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Christine Nowak on Thursday ordered Smocks held in custody until his trial in Washington D.C. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted on a charge of knowingly and willfully transmitting threats in interstate commerce. He was arrested last Friday, and prosecutors had filed a motion to keep him behind bars.

According to authorities, Smocks traveled to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, the day before the deadly riot at the Capitol.

Kendrick Chumak, an FBI agent, testified at Thursday’s hearing that Smocks told him he attended Donald Trump’s speech and then walked to the Capitol with the crowd and watched the chaos from nearby.

“He said he went there at the invitation of the president of the United States,” Chumak said.

Smocks told the FBI he did not enter the Capitol building, although agents have not confirmed that.

Smocks, who’s worked as a Dallas Uber driver, said he’d follow the president’s orders even if they were illegal, the agent said. One of his posts on Parler — the Twitter-like social-media site popular with conservatives and others who believe Twitter censors their speech — called Trump the “greatest president the world has ever known.”

And Smocks said all citizens have a duty to rise up and defend the nation if the president calls for it, the agent said.

Chumak said Smocks also said he believed the U.S. was at war with China.

Smock’s Parler posts advised people to prepare their weapons to help the U.S. military because law enforcement would have no authority during the insurgency, Chumak said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracey Batson told the judge that the evidence “showed a pattern of Mr. Smocks’ fraudulent life.”

She also called him a danger.

“It’s clear he was inciting people… to carry out this fight,” Batson said.

The day after the Capitol was stormed, police say, Smocks posted on Parler about the insurrection, writing that Donald Trump’s supporters would return to Washington armed.

“We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match,” he wrote, according to a criminal complaint.

Smocks traveled back to Texas the day after the riot, authorities said, and continued posting about a return to the Capitol.

“Prepare our weapons, and then go get ‘em,” he wrote, according to the complaint. “Lets hunt these cowards down like the Traitors that each of them are. This includes RINOS, Dems, and Tech Execs.”

His posts were viewed tens of thousands of times, police said. Videos on Smocks’ YouTube channel – posted under the name Colonel T. Perez -- also promoted conflict, challenging veterans to carry their firearms to protests and taunt others who don’t intend to fire their weapons, authorities said.

Smocks had bought an airline ticket to travel to the Dominican Republic on the day of his arrest on Jan. 15 but had decided not to go, Chumak said. Smocks had visited the country over the New Year’s holiday, he said.

Smocks admitted to impersonating agents in the past but said he got counseling for it and didn’t do it anymore, Chumak said. But the agent testified that Smocks had been engaging in similar fraudulent conduct for which he’s been convicted in the past.

A search of his apartment earlier this month turned up numerous fraudulent documents including a pilot’s license in his name and fake military identification documents, Chumak said. Smocks had claimed to be a lieutenant colonel in the Army with 30 years of service on his apartment lease application, he said. And he told people he worked as a commercial pilot, Chumak said.

Police also found a laminating machine in his apartment, as well as blank access cards and a stun gun, according to testimony.

His attorney, James Whalen, argued that his client’s posts were “conditional,” based on other things that had to happen. Whalen also said the government used snippets from the online posts that were taken out of context. He said his client had no intent to threaten any specific people.

Whalen also said it’s interesting that his client faces a felony when people who actually breeched the Capitol are only charged with misdemeanor trespass offenses.

Smocks’ mother and another relative, contacted by phone on Wednesday, both declined to comment.

History of deceit

Smocks’ first arrest came when he was 18, for unlawful use of a credit card, according to testimony during Thursday’s hearing. He also has been arrested for theft and assaulting a police officer and was seen carrying a gun while posing as an agent, according to testimony.

Batson said Smocks often engaged with the public and real police while pretending to be a federal agent, even falsely implicating someone in a murder.

A federal search warrant from a previous case said Smocks was convicted in 1993 of impersonating a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a Secret Service agent and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Smocks was convicted again, in 1996, for impersonating an FBI agent and was sentenced to a year in prison, the warrant said.

Next he was arrested in Collin County in 2000 after a woman said he knocked on her door, claiming to be a U.S. Marshall who had a warrant for her son’s arrest, court records show. Smocks, who was on federal probation for an earlier case, was charged in federal court in Sherman with impersonating an officer.

But the charge was dropped after the chief witness against him disappeared, according to court records.

Then in 2003 Smocks pleaded guilty to multiple counts of forgery and theft in state court in Missouri, court records say. Authorities said he made more than a dozen bogus documents including fake insurance policies and insurance cards.

Smocks did not show up for his sentencing hearing and instead disappeared, officials said.

He turned up in Dallas shortly afterward, wearing a uniform and claiming to be a retired Army major, according to a federal affidavit associated with the case.

A woman had called Dallas police to report that Smocks was impersonating a military officer, a pilot and a federal agent. The woman said she had met Smocks in April 2003 at the Valley View Mall in Richardson and recognized him from a church they both attended.

The couple began dating and he proposed to her two weeks later, records say. The woman said Smocks told her he was working as a pilot for a private company, and he often wore a pilot’s uniform. But his story kept changing, she said. And he had credentials that identified him as a Defense Department agent and a member of the Army Special Forces, court records show.

Smocks told her that “he was part of a secret anti-terrorism fighting team and he is often deployed on secret military missions,” the affidavit said.

The fiancé reported seeing military discharge papers in Smocks’ apartment indicating he had served over 20 years in the Army before retiring as a major. She also said she noticed he had counterfeiting equipment including a laminating machine, a scanner, and check-making software.

Full dress uniform

When the couple attended a wedding at a Plano church, Smocks wore a “full dress uniform of a United States Army Major complete with a beret, service ribbons, medals and a military saber,” the federal affidavit said. The decorations he wore on his uniform included a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Flying Cross and a combat ribbon related to the liberation of Kuwait, records say.

Forged military documents that Smocks submitted to an apartment manager for a lease said he served as a “transport pilot, cobra gun ship aviator, and as a member of the diplomatic security service.”

Smocks later began using the name Troy Perez, which he said was his father’s surname, according to court records. And he acquired a driver’s license, a birth certificate, a pilot’s license and other identification documents under that name -- one of several aliases he’s used, authorities said.

When he was arrested, agents searched his Dallas apartment and found a seal embosser and other equipment as well as numerous fake documents including pilot’s licenses, Armed Forces ID cards, military discharge records, driver’s licenses and a Missouri birth certificate, court records say. A 20-count indictment against him was issued in 2005, accusing him of using the fake IDs to lease apartments and buy merchandise.

Smocks pleaded guilty to bank fraud and producing fraudulent identification documents, and the following year a federal judge in Sherman sentenced him to 30 months, records show.

But he was sent back to Missouri to begin serving a 34-year prison sentence for the forgery conviction in that state, court records show.

In late 2011, Smocks was transferred back to federal custody to begin serving his fraud sentence after being paroled by the state of Missouri, according to court records. By 2015, Smocks was working at a Park Cities Holiday Inn as a “concierge/bellman,” according to a bankruptcy filing.

He again came to the attention of federal authorities following the siege of the Capitol building.

On the day of the riot, Smocks posted the following message on Parler: “We Patriots by the millions have arrived in Washington, DC, carrying banners of support for the greatest President the World has ever known. But if we must… Many of us will return on January 19th, 2021, carrying our weapons in support of Our nation’s resolve, to which the world will never forget.”

When Smocks returned to Texas, he continued posting about a return to the Capitol, authorities said.

He posted that all “who resist US are enemies of Our Constitution, and must be treated as such… it wasn’t the building that We wanted. . . it was them!”