'Commissioner for Burns' behind bars
Cops say Brandon C. Jones, who claims to work with the U.N., was arrested Saturday on N.J. warrant alleging he was driving a stolen rental car.
HIS EXCELLENCY Brandon C. Jones is not on a humanitarian fact-finding mission inside a city jail right now as the Commissioner for Burns.
Jones appears to have dropped the surname McGeer from his lengthy title and picked up more accusations and disgruntled associates since the Daily News profiled his bizarre life last year.
He's an inmate at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility after being arrested Saturday, his 32nd birthday, at the 18th Police District. Jones was initially arrested in July on a warrant out of Atlantic County, N.J., and a bench warrant was later issued after he failed to appear at an extradition hearing last month.
A spokesman for the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office said Jones was arrested Nov. 23 in Buena Borough on charges of receiving stolen property for allegedly bringing an Avis rental car with Pennsylvania tags to New Jersey, allegedly knowing that it had been reported stolen.
Jones, who claimed he was severely burned in a scalding bathtub by an aunt as a child in South Philly, had been living in Atlantic City recently after connecting with family members there. His uncle, Joseph Jones, said Brandon hired him as security for official Office of the Commissioner for Burns business at the United Nations in New York.
Joseph Jones claimed that his nephew agreed to pay him $110,000 per year. He hasn't been paid yet.
"We had to evict him from my house. He's been out almost a week now," Jones, 40, said earlier this week.
Joseph Jones said his nephew has also gotten him in trouble with his electric company and fouled up his E-ZPass account.
"I'm just waiting to get paid," he said.
There's a long line of businesses waiting to get paid by Brandon Jones, including limousine services, business-card printers, flag makers, rental-car agencies and a private-jet company he allegedly duped into flying him around several times.
Jones claims to run the Office of the Commissioner for Burns as a nonprofit aimed at providing help to fire departments and communities in need.
The U.N., when reached by the Daily News last year, said Jones had been sent a cease-and-desist letter to stop misrepresenting himself.
According to court records, Jones has a bench-warrant hearing scheduled for tomorrow.