Md. man pleads guilty to impersonating a firefighter

WASHINGTON — He answered the call to fight fires.

He even had lights, sirens, and dressed in firefighting gear complete with a vest
with EMS patches on the front and back,

But Kevin Patrick Kraft wasn’t a Montgomery County firefighter.

When he showed up to an April 14 fire in Rockville, a police officer who’d
followed Kraft to the scene became suspicious; no one answering the call to the
Taft Street fire knew anyone named Kevin Kraft.

Ramon Korionoff, spokesman for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office,
says court records show something else about the man who’d raced to the scene of
a fire, blowing through a red light with lights and sirens blaring: “He has a
conviction for arson.”

But on Wednesday, 44-year-old Kevin Patrick Kraft of Konxville, Maryland headed
to court to plead guilty to impersonating a firefighter. Korionoff says the
charge carries a possible 3-year jail term. Korionoff says the crime is a serious
one, “We really want the public to rest assured, that first responders and
firefighters are the real deal: They’re the people that we need to pull over for,
they’re the people that run towards danger.”

Kraft appeared in Montgomery County Circuit Court to enter his guilty plea. He
will be sentenced in January.

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