Ben Carson Uses Mom For Endorsement — Despite Declaring Her Incompetent!
Nov. 11 2015, Updated 12:47 p.m. ET
In what one legal expert says may be Presidential hopeful Ben Carson's most shameless act of fakery yet, he claims that his mom penned a glowing preface to his memoirs in 2011 — the same year that court documents obtained by RadarOnline.com reveal that he had her declared incompetent!
Now 87, Sonya Carson has suffered for the past four years with Alzheimer's — a tragedy theatrically played up by the Baltimore neurosurgeon in May when he announced that he was postponing his opening Presidential campaign rally because she was "dying" and he wanted to say his final "goodbye" to her.
According to Baltimore City Circuit Court records obtained by Radar, the sketchy doc was appointed as her guardian after a June 27, 2011 proceeding.
In an explanation of such rulings, the Maryland attorney general's office says, "Guardianship is designed as an option of last resort…it is a public declaration of incompetency."
Yet in 2011, Carson brought out a new edition of his memoir, Gifted Hands. Largely a reprint of the original 1990 edition, it contains one addition, plugged on the cover — "A Letter to the Reader from Ben's Mother."
The small print adds, "Copyright 2011 by Sonya Carson."
The screed is replete with details about what Carson claims was his miserable childhood: Married at 13, Sonya discovered Carson's dad was a bigamist, "but God helped me every step of the way." She raised him on welfare, "working several jobs at a time" and picking produce at farms to feed him and his brother, Curtis.
The gracefully written two pages conclude with a literary flourish, quoting a five-paragraph poem by Mayme White Miller about the importance of being "the captain of your ship."
In his announcement about flying to Sonya's deathbed, however, the doc said she was ravaged by illness: "It would have been nice to have her today. She developed Alzheimer's in 2011," he said.
"I don't know what to make of this," a lawyer who is an expert on guardianship told Radar. "I can't imagine that Carson would have gotten guardianship if his mom wasn't incompetent. In that case, how could she write the introduction to a book? Given the guy's track record, maybe he gave her some help?"
The troubling questions about Carson's veracity include his claim that he was offered a "scholarship" to the US Military Academy at West Point, which is free and does not give scholarships. Moreover, the school has no record of Carson applying nor being granted a place.
Carson, 64, also claims he survived an armed stickup at a Popeye's chicken restaurant near his Baltimore hospital. However, he is a vegetarian, and the Baltimore police department has no record of any such robbery.
Then there is his claim that he found God as a child after attempting to stab a boy. No one who knew him could recall the incident.
At Yale University, Carson says he was the sole winner of a tough exam in a class called Perceptions 301. A Yale librarian says the course didn't exist.
As for his hard knocks childhood, a social worker in the Boston neighborhood where Carson says he witnessed horrible violence alleged, "That's just a vast exaggeration."
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sonya survived her May crisis — thanks, Carson says, to "praying." He added that if it were not for her illness, "She would have been on the warpath for people who tell lies about me, she would have been ready to shoot them."
