From childhood burn victim in South Philly to international con man, Brandon Jones finally convicted

A long, weird con that may have begun in a South Philadelphia bathtub two decades ago came to an end last week in a Manhattan courtroom.

That is, if Brandon Jones doesn't talk himself out of prison.

Jones, 35, who grew up in public housing near Ritner Street, was convicted Thursday of passing fictitious government obligations, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said Jones received "hundreds of thousands of dollars in free hotel stays, airline tickets, and other goods and services."

"Now that Jones has been convicted of his crimes, there will be nothing fictitious about the prison time he faces," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement.

The charges don't begin to explain just how bizarre Jones' journey has been. When he sat down for an interview with the Daily News in 2013, Jones was using as a title  "His Excellency Brandon C. Jones-McGeer, the Commissioner for Burns and Head of Delegation (at the United Nations)."

"It's impossible for people to believe someone like me can have such a job," he said at the time.

As the self-proclaimed commissioner for burns, Jones contended that he had founded a nonprofit called  "The United States Burn Support Organization" to help burn victims around the region while also doing humanitarian work with the U.N. Jones himself was burned badly in a scalding bathtub in 1992.

Jones was a regular at the U.N., commuting from West Philly. He often posed with dignitaries and celebrities in his uniform, claiming he was working on global projects. Berman said a former U.N. ambassador was among the fraud victims.

The con never made Jones wealthy — far from it — but it did get him things he wanted, like an ornate Commissioner for Burns uniform and several flights on private jets. He made flags and pins, and was twice arrested for renting cars and keeping them. He paid for nothing and told elaborate lies to avoid dealing with creditors.

"I don't think anything he ever told me was true," one said. "He put me on hold one time because he said he had a call coming in from Hillary Clinton."

Jones claimed his goal wasn't about being "rich and famous," but he seemed to relish the attention. The Office of the Commissioner for Burns often published news releases on wide-ranging topics including the Boston Marathon bombing, various tsunamis and earthquakes, the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore, witchcraft, and, eventually, the Daily News.

When Jones was arrested in March 2016 trying to use a "government travel request" to get airline tickets at LaGuardia Airport, he put out a release about his incarceration at Rikers Island. Jones claimed he was actually "undercover" there, investigating jail conditions.

"It's about doing something my mother would have expected of me," he said.

After the first story about Jones was published in 2013, the family of Jacqueline McGeer said that the woman never adopted Jones and that he shouldn't be using her name. They were among the dozens of people who contacted the Inquirer and Daily News in subsequent years, claiming they'd just given him money or products.

In some cases, Jones did actually supply donations he'd obtained to fire departments or other nonprofits. None of them had ever been paid for, and most had to be returned.

"I really don't know what his motives were and what he wanted to accomplish," a Chester firefighter told the Daily News in 2013. "It was all really, really strange."

In 1992, Jones was burned in a scalding tub in the Ritner Street home where he lived as a boy. He said an aunt put him in the tub; that woman, Emma Oliver, served five years in prison for child endangerment. The burns often landed Jones back in the hospital with infections, even as an adult.

When the Daily News reached out to Oliver in 2013, she said Jones got into the bathtub himself. She contacted police immediately after the scalding and claimed "there was some level of mistake made on my part." She pleaded not guilty.

"I'm glad you're doing a story on him," she told the Daily News. "He knows what he did."

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Jones could face up to 65 years in prison when he is sentenced in July.