Ore. PD: DEA Imposter Duped Woman about Training

Eight months before a Portland police sergeant stopped an alleged DEA imposter in downtown Portland, the same man had come into a hospital’s emergency department with a badge and gun holster on his hip, according to a former security official.

The man told the security officers at Portland Providence Medical Center that he was on a mission “to bust drug dealers at night in Portland,” recalled Nick Meli, who worked security at the hospital last May when the man walked in.

The man showed security officers that he had a tactical vest with a federal Drug Enforcement Administration patch and his last name - Golden - on it, as well as red-and-blue emergency lights on his car, Meli said.

But Meli said he was immediately suspicious, especially when the man said he had installed the lights himself.

“I was like this dude is 100% fake,” he said.

Police last week arrested Robert Edward Golden in an investigation that accuses the 41-year-old man of duping a woman into believing he was a Drug Enforcement Administration agent and training her for more than a year, including taking her on ride-alongs and having her develop confidential informants among homeless people. He faces a charge of impersonating a federal agent.

At the Northeast Portland hospital, Meli said security officers questioned the man and he told them “he became an agent after only a year or so of training.”

Meli said hospital security officials contacted the FBI and the DEA but were directed to call Portland police.

They were concerned because the man had a magazine to an air soft gun and worried “we might see him on the news” for something violent or inappropriate, Meli said.

“It was the whole ‘see something, say something,’” he said by email. Meli also filed a tip online with the FBI last May, he added.

But when he called Portland police three times that night, he said no one from the bureau responded to the hospital.

“The same officer told us to stop calling about it” — that the man appeared to be a known person with mental health issues, Meli said.

Portland police confirmed that the bureau received a call last May from the hospital about a man posing as a federal agent. An officer did not respond to the hospital but spoke with security, according to Lt. Nathan Sheppard, a bureau spokesman.

“The officer talked with security, but they were unable to articulate a law being violated, just that this individual had several DEA related items and was waiting for a patient to be discharged,” Sheppard said.

The officer, Sheppard said, explained that he had no lawful reason to detain the man at that time.

“It is not uncommon in ‘suspicious’ or ‘unwanted person’ calls for the subject to have left before officers arrive, so officers can save valuable time by confirming before they arrive that the situation still exists and laws are being violated,” Sheppard said.

The FBI would not confirm it received a tip about Golden last year, citing a confidential process. “As a general matter, allegations of criminal conduct are reviewed by the FBI for their merit, with consideration of any applicable federal laws. Such a review does not necessarily result in the opening of an investigation but, when warranted, we take any actions appropriate to the matter, such as seeking further information or referring the matter to a partner agency,” said Antonia Kreamier, an FBI spokesperson, in an email.

In his seven years working security at the hospital, Meli said it wasn’t unusual for patients who ended up at the hospital’s emergency department to claim to be undercover FBI, CIA or other federal agents.

“But this guy was the only one to go full blown everything. Badge, handcuffs, ID tag … the whole nine yards,” he said.

No action was taken until last Wednesday when a Portland police sergeant stopped Golden and a woman who was with him at Southwest 13th Avenue and Columbia Street, according to federal court records. The sergeant removed a holster from under Golden’s jacket and a replica firearm, according to investigators.

Golden insisted they were “feds” and directed the woman with him to show the officer her credentials, according to the sergeant. The woman claimed Golden gave her a badge, was training her to be a DEA agent for the past year, having her do ride-alongs and seek informants among homeless people, according to a federal complaint.

Golden was taken to the DEA’s Portland office and charged.

He appeared in U.S. District Court in Portland last week. His defense lawyer entered a not guilty plea to the charge on his behalf and he was released Friday to pretrial supervision on a host of conditions, including that he undergo drug and mental health evaluations.

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