1. Tania Head
The most notorious 9/11 fraudster is Tania Head. Her dramatic account of escaping the South Tower of the World Trade Center brought her to the attention of the media. Tania, whose name is Alicia Esteve Head, was ultimately exposed as a fraud. On September 11 2001, she was attending college in Spain, her home country.
Following the tragedy, Head moved to New York where she co-founded a 9/11 survivors’ group and even gave tours at Ground Zero.
Real survivors recall she made them feel guilty of sharing their personal accounts because she would always one-up them with her vivid story. She claimed she saw the wingtip of the second plane shear through the Sky Lobby on the 78th floor of the South Tower. That her fiancee was killed in the other building that a dying man gave her his wedding ring to pass to his wife.
Her fabrications came to light when in 2007, the New York Times revealed the numerous inconsistencies in Tania Head’s account. Little is known of Head’s activities or location since she was exposed as a fraud.
2. Steve Rannazzisi
Comedian Steve Rannazzisi, known for his role in “The League,” would say he got into his comedy after surviving 9/11. He claimed he was working at Merrill Lynch’s offices on the 54th floor of the South Tower.
Fellow comic Pete Davidson, whose firefighter father died on 9/11, said he found it weird when he Tweeted Rannazzisi saying “I heard you got into comedy because of 9/11 I think that’s really cool” and got back the response “something like that”.
Rannazzisi’s account was that once the first plane struck the North Tower, he escaped minutes before the second plane hit his building. In reality’s he never worked at the World Trade Center, and Merrill Lynch didn’t even have an office there.
However, when confronted by The New York Times, Rannazzisi admitted that his story was false. He has since asked for forgiveness and expressed regret for his actions.
3. Donato Tramuto
Donato Tramuto’s two friends and their three-year old were killed on the second plane that hit the World Trade Center. Tramuto, a pharmaceuticals CEO, saw an opportunity to raise his profile.
Instead of paying tribute to his friends, Tramuto went to the media claiming he was booked on the same flight as his friends and “got off” at the last minute because of a toothache. In reality, he never had a ticket and instead took his regularly scheduled Monday flight to LA on September 10th.
Weeks later, he set up the Tramuto Foundation, an organisation named after himself. In its first decade, his Foundation did not even name his friends who died, the Gamboa-Brandhorst family, on its website.
He gave countless talks and raised millions in donations from individuals who were moved by his story. But the money he raised did not go to the family of his friends or even 9/11 related causes.
Tramuto donated some of this money to Christ the King Seminary in Buffalo, which was run by his lifelong friend Father Joe Gatto. The seminary closed after claims of widespread sexual abuse, which reportedly involved Tramuto’s friend.
Tramuto passed over a million dollars of the donations to Kerry Kennedy-Cuomo’s Foundation. The politically connected organisation then gave him a board seat and a Human Rights award alongside Hillary Clinton.
Donato Tramuto has ambitions to run for governor of Maine as a Democrat, and his connections and money have so far protected him from media criticism.
4. Charles Giles
For years, ambulance worker Charles Giles told the media and his community that he was inside the North Tower when it collapsed. He said:
“I reached into my right pocket, pulled out my rosary beads and said God I’m coming home.” Giles claimed he was saved by a Port Authority policeman who he remembered only by the badge number 1236.
“This hero, this Guardian Angel, grabbed me and tried to get me to the exit. But we were unsuccessful. The building collapsed on top of us. We heard people trying to dig us out. They found us. My Guardian Angel saved my life”.
But the account collapsed when News12 tracked down the Port Authority policeman with that badge number. Now retired, Mark Meier told the journalists none of Giles’ account is true – he never met Giles and was never in the building.
The official records of all the individuals pulled from the rubble of Ground Zero also confirmed Giles’ account was false. The fraudster benefited from thousands of dollars raised on his behalf.
5. Steven Shapiro
In 2018, Steven Shapiro was outed as a fraudulent 9/11 first-responder. Shapiro used fake firefighter uniform and calmed that he got PTSD from the trauma of working at Ground Zero. The fraud was revealed when Shapiro’s photo circulated in local news after his arrest for credit-card theft.
His Facebook page attracted comments referencing his lies. One user writing “You really fooled us Steve, but the whole 9/11 thing is beyond bad.” And another said, “I have no tolerance for anyone who steals Valor!”
