Michael Nathaniel Ethans Fr. Michael Con artist posing as clergy Internet

Things that are probably true: he grew up in Alaska, is an ex-marine, speaks Russian and Spanish, has a large amount of seminary theological training, has diabetes.

What is not true: he's ordained, his father is a Metropolitan/Arch Bishop in the denomination, and the denomination he's reporting to be a pastor in. 

This guy is smart.  Apparently, he also poses as the son of a wealthy investor.  In this case, he was posing as the son of an "arch-bishop" who was very important and had lots of power and money.  

He called the church and got the pastor's cell number, which he called, identifying himself as an archbishop and saying that his son had been on an airplane heading to DC, but had had a diabetic seizure on the plane, which had diverted to Baton Rouge and he son was in a hospital there.  The pastor, who was in Peru, gave him the names and numbers of several clergy he could call, I was one of them.  

The son was released from the hospital and would need hotel accommodations until he, the archbishop could send some priests to get him.  He was also calling the church, over and over again, and a local pastor picked up the phone.  The caller identified himself as the archbishop, explaining the whole story given to the pastor. 

This pastor and a layman from the congregation went to the hotel and paid for 2 nights and also gave him some cash for meals.  When they arrived, I was speaking with him on the phone.  He was speaking very rapidly and repeating the same things over and over again.

The next morning, the layman picked him up and brought him to church where I met him.  After worship, the layman and I took him to lunch, after which, he asked us to take him to Wal-Mart so he could order insuline.  I believe that he is diabetic.

He had a medical card which had a zero balance.  We loaded it with almost $300 for him to order the insuline and have it overnighted to the hotel.  He couldn't load it from his credit card, which he had maxed out for the hospital stay, as there was no Veterns Hospital in Baton Rouge for him to go to.  As the Bank was in Mexico, I saw the card, he said he couldn't use it outside of Mexico.  I had suggested that he call the bank, explain his situation and have them up his limit and unfreeze the card.  Which is why he couldn't load his medical card.  However, after we'd done this, we were told that come Monday morning at 12:01 a.m., he'd be able to use the card.

We were told that his father was going to arrive at the Baton Rouge airport at 7pm from Houston and he wanted us to meet him.  The layman was going to pick him up from wherever he was, he'd checked out of the hotel and in a phone conversation, had somehow gotten himself to the Veterans Walk-In clinic.  

I looked up the flights arriving at the Baton Rouge airport and no flights arrive 7 pm.  Also, the most logical flight was delayed until after 10 pm.  The layman did stop at the airport, as it was on his way home, and there was no one there.