My friend Jason Mullaney

Jason Mul­laney is a friend of mine.  He’s been in the news as “The Navy SEAL who swin­dled his broth­ers” and has been accused of steal­ing $1 mil­lion dol­lars from oth­er SEALs and a fam­i­ly friend, but from the report­ing I’ve seen no one has pre­sent­ed the oth­er side of a man who has helped, encour­aged, and sup­port­ed hun­dreds of peo­ple as he cat­a­pult­ed to the top of a very unsta­ble structure.

First, how do I know Jason?  We served togeth­er in the Teams, and I’ve been friends with him ever since we met in 1999.  He pro­vid­ed a tremen­dous exam­ple for me both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, and served as a mod­el char­ac­ter for me in that community.

Jason Mullaney, a fine man.
Jason Mul­laney (left) & the author on deploy­ment in the Phillip­pines, cir­ca 2000. This pho­to is copy­right­ed and may not be used with­out permission.

Jason was the quin­tes­sen­tial squared away Team guy.  Phys­i­cal­ly strong and men­tal­ly sharp, he planned ahead for every­thing, was metic­u­lous with his gear, fol­lowed the “2 is 1, 1 is none” rule, and was the guy you turned to if you need­ed to know how to do anything.

He’s quick to smile, and quick­er to lend a help­ing hand the instant he sees you need it.

He isn’t your aver­age one dimen­sion­al over­ly mus­cled knuck­le­head; behind the tat­tooed exte­ri­or he has one of the sharpest minds you’ll encounter, and he glee­ful­ly puts that mind to humor and pranks as quick­ly and eas­i­ly as he put togeth­er pol­ished ops in the Teams and sol­id deals in real estate.

Whether as a SEAL oper­a­tor, instruc­tor, or lat­er on in the world of real estate and invest­ing, Jason main­tained those qual­i­ties.  His paper­work was always in order, he worked excep­tion­al­ly hard both for him­self and oth­ers, he was ready with a joke or his unique bark­ing laugh, and always had a ready solu­tion for every­thing that came up.

When he was on top, when the real estate mar­ket was boom­ing, damn near every SEAL on the West Coast seemed to turn to him for help with their real estate deals.  He con­stant­ly guid­ed his friends, helped them avoid the many pit­falls of buy­ing a house, and helped more SEALs buy hous­es than any­one else I know.

In fact, I’d be will­ing to bet that Jason Mul­laney cre­at­ed far more wealth for the men of the SEAL Teams than he’s ever been accused of scam­ming any­one out of.

Jason was also a mod­el of the mot­to “Do the right thing always”.  Let me give you an example.

We had swam in “over the beach” in the mid­dle of win­ter on a train­ing exer­cise.  “Over the beach” is the clas­sic frog­man entrance; you roll off a boat in the dead of night a half mile off shore with your ruck & rifle and swim in.  It’s not com­pli­cat­ed, just cold and hard.

Usu­al­ly when you go over the beach, you swim in wear­ing a wet­suit (or dry­suit) and then change some­where on land into the appro­pri­ate attire for patrolling; wet­suits are not designed to hike in.  Once you’ve changed into your patrolling gear you stay as warm and dry as you can, some­thing that is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant if, like we were, you are going to hole up in a “hide site” and observe the ene­my while remain­ing undetected.

A hide site is the small­est pos­si­ble space you can fit your­self into and not be noticed by folks look­ing for you.  You don’t want to move around too much in it since the human eye is attract­ed by move­ment.  Hide sites are, as the name sug­gests, incred­i­bly effec­tive at hid­ing what you’re doing from peo­ple try­ing to find you, and usu­al­ly incred­i­bly uncom­fort­able.  You sleep, eat, watch, and shit from the same lit­tle spot for 3 days straight.

Jason, myself, and a third team mem­ber had come over the beach, changed out of our wet­suits and were patrolling along the ocean’s edge up to the spot where we would pen­e­trate inland.  We were patrolling along the water for a good rea­son; no one would ever think to look there for us. It was 200 feet of steep rip-rap from the water­line up to a busy highway.

Rip-rap is loose stone used to armor a break­wa­ter or shore­line from pound­ing surf, and aside from sun­ny days in the mid­dle of sum­mer, rip-rap is the one of the worst pos­si­ble places to walk; the rocks are slip­pery, the gaps between them can be big & deep, and in the dark of night it’s awful­ly tough to keep your footing.

We slow­ly made our way along the rip-rap in the dark with Jason lead­ing.  We were being very care­ful to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly stay far enough away from the crash­ing ocean to remain dry, but not get pushed up the slope so much that we would be sil­hou­et­ted by the lights of cars dri­ving along the coastal highway.

I heard Jason slip, then curse as his body thud­ded into the rocks.  There was an awful squish­ing sound, then the even more hor­rid sound of suc­tion being released.  As we scram­bled over to see what had hap­pened, our noses gave us the first hint.

The smell of dead rot­ting flesh over­pow­ered the fresh salty air of the sea as we came upon Jason, who was pulling his leg, from mid-hip down, out of the decom­pos­ing body of a big dead sea lion.  Jason had seen it at the last minute, adjust­ed his step to miss it and end­ed up slip­ping and slid­ing right into (and through) the mon­ster’s body.

The smell was revolt­ing; our thoughts flew to the com­ing expe­ri­ence of liv­ing in a small space that smelt of dead sea lion for 3 days.  With­out wait­ing for us to say a word Jason wad­ed into the frigid water to wash off the slime & smell as best he could.

There’s not much worse than wad­ing into cold water at mid­night when moments before you were warm and dry, but with­out a thought for any oth­er course of action Jason did it right away.  It was the right thing.  That was enough.

Lat­er that night, after we had locat­ed a good place to hole up and set­tled in, it was my turn to pull the first watch, the one that goes ’til dawn.  I’d made the clas­sic mis­take of not check­ing my gear twice before leav­ing, and had for­got­ten to pack gloves.

It was­n’t an issue at first, but as the night wore on and got cold­er and cold­er, my fin­gers slow­ly stiff­ened.  By the time my watch was up I could only jab Jason in the side with a board-stiff hand to wake him.  Cheer­ful as a man can be who has slept in wet pants, he joked about hav­ing a nice clean bath before slid­ing into a stinky hide site with us two.

I told him my hands were chilly and I’d for­got­ten my gloves, and in clas­sic Jason Mul­laney fash­ion he instant­ly pulled out his extra pair,  “Oh, you did­n’t bring spares?  Stu­pid new guy.”  Quick with a joke, always pre­pared, always gen­er­ous, always will­ing to do the right thing, that’s Jason Mullaney.

So what, you’re say­ing?  Those are noth­ing, those are tiny acts.  A SEAL is sup­posed to be able to han­dle the cold, and you’re stu­pid for for­get­ting your gloves.  That does­n’t make Jason a hero.

It does­n’t, but every sol­dier knows it’s the small things a man does that show you how he’ll behave when every­thing is on the line.

I could tell you more Mul­laney sto­ries; about how the time my car broke down and went into the shop for a week.  I was a mobile notary and my liveli­hood depend­ed on being able to dri­ve all over South­ern Cal­i­for­nia at a momen­t’s notice.

I did­n’t have a lot at the time; I was bust­ing my butt, slow­ly salt­ing away mon­ey, but I did­n’t have any­where near enough to rent a car for two weeks. The first guy I called was Jason.  He lent me his car with­out hes­i­ta­tion, with­out thought for the few thou­sand miles he knew I’d have to put on it, and with­out ask­ing when I’d have it back to him.

Any­one who ever worked with Jason has at least a few sto­ries like that; Jason doing the right thing no mat­ter what, Jason being ultra pre­pared, Jason being instant­ly gen­er­ous.  Small sto­ries or big, help­ing warm up chilly hands or help­ing some­one keep their job or buy their first house, Jason was known for his gen­eros­i­ty and for doing the right thing.

It’s a potent com­bi­na­tion, and one that allowed him to help hun­dreds of peo­ple as his busi­ness grew.

Hope­ful­ly, you’re one of those many peo­ple he helped.  Hope­ful­ly, you’re as grate­ful as I am to have had the good for­tune of meet­ing and work­ing with Jason Mul­laney.  Hope­ful­ly, you’ll reach out in support.

I’m not ask­ing you to pass judge­ment on his case; that’s what the legal sys­tem is for, as slow, inef­fi­cient, and frus­trat­ing­ly uncar­ing as it may some­times seem to be.

I’m ask­ing you to tip the bal­ance of sto­ries told about a man just slight­ly in his favor.

For every time you slept on his couch, bor­rowed a few bucks from him, drove his car, had him help you with a real estate deal, had him toss you a spare mag when you were dry, or heard his excep­tion­al­ly loud voice greet­ing you in his hap­py bull­dog fash­ion, I ask that you repay him below with a few quick words of encouragement.

For every sto­ry writ­ten about him by some­one who nev­er met Jason, I ask that you write just a few words in sup­port below in the com­ments section.

Thank you.

NFH

Update, May 6th 2015:  In an emo­tion­al­ly charged court ses­sion with sup­port­ive state­ments from a wide cross sec­tion of his life includ­ing his sis­ter, co-work­ers in the mort­gage indus­try, for­mer SEALs includ­ing investor/victims, Jason Mul­laney was sen­tenced today to 6 years and 8 months.  He should be out on parole in late 2015.

Update, May 24th, 2017: Jason is out after serv­ing his time and is work­ing hard in San Diego.  One of his goals is to repay every­one he owed and I’m pret­ty sure he’ll achieve it.

 

 

 

 

 

30 thoughts on “My friend Jason Mullaney”

  1. Erinn Mullaney Martocchio

    Final­ly, some­one will­ing to stand up and speak on behalf of my broth­er. I have hes­i­tat­ed to speak pub­licly for Jason, not because I don’t believe in him, but because, well, he’s my broth­er and what sis­ter would­n’t sup­port her own broth­er? Well I have been moved to tears read­ing these words today. To see in print what I already know and have known to be true for over 40 years about the amaz­ing char­ac­ter of my broth­er, gen­er­ous to a fault. I am so thank­ful that Jason is known at least by some for his true char­ac­ter. And in this week of Thanks­giv­ing, I am thank­ful and very proud to say that Jason Mul­laney is my broth­er, a man with more gen­uine heart and integri­ty than most I’ve ever met! Thank you, Nik…

  2. I’m one of the peo­ple Jason has helped. I met Jason when I was 19, he was a friend of my broth­er’s. Back then I worked two jobs and had no mon­ey. He lived a few blocks from me in Coro­n­a­do and was still in the Teams. Dur­ing one par­tic­u­lar rough spot Jason showed up on my doorstep with gro­ceries, know­ing I had run out of mon­ey. I had just moved into town and did­n’t know any­one. Jason intro­duced me to his sis­ter, my age, in an effort to help me meet people. 

    In uni­ver­si­ty I was look­ing for a job, Jason offered me one imme­di­ate­ly. Through­out the years, this has been the sto­ry of Jason. When he was doing mort­gages, after get­ting out of the Navy, every­one was com­ing to him . I would often see peo­ple call­ing him, or com­ing over, ask­ing for help; help to move, help to fix a car, to bor­row a car — you name it, Jason was there helping.

    At every step of the way Jason has been there for me, unfail­ing­ly. I’ve known him on his way up and I’ve known him on his way down. I know him still. I am a wit­ness to his gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it and kind­ness these past 15 years. This, too, is not a com­ment or judg­ment on his cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. This is an offer of kind­ness, of hope and of love to some­one that has shown me noth­ing but. I hope oth­ers remem­ber his help and his friend­ship and feel they can pass along kind words to a man of few words but tremen­dous heart.

  3. Though I am not famil­iar with the details of the com­plaints against Jason I am hor­ri­fied that he still sits in jail await­ing tri­al I imag­ine, no one should have to endure that.
    I was Jason’s neigh­bor for sev­er­al years before any of this hap­pened and know him to be noth­ing but a kind, gen­er­ous and con­sid­er­ate friend & neigh­bor. He was always will­ing to open his home for neigh­bor­hood par­ties or to help a per­son in need.
    I do not believe that Jason ever intend­ed to swin­dle any­one, I am sure he is not alone in being “upside down’ in the Real Estate mar­ket and I imag­ine things just went south and he tried his best to make his investors mon­ey. I am so very sor­ry that Jason is suf­fer­ing and I wish him the best legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion pos­si­ble & would like to help. Sin­cere­ly, Liz Jardine

  4. I remem­ber a par­ty of Jason’s, sur­round­ed by friends and jok­ing with every­one while his lit­tle dog ran under­foot — every so often, Jason would stoop down to pick up his dog and hold him out of har­m’s way. He needs to know his friends have not for­got­ten him — great essay.

  5. Jason M. Ha, how can i talk about him? Well let’s see. I guess, prob­a­bly one of the 4 best SEALS I have ever known. I would sim­ply say if he need­ed a kid­ney I would find a doc­tor to cut mine out. Jason I remem­ber you as the best. I have made my life great and con­sid­er you one of the rea­sons I was able to. I can­not wait to see you bro.

  6. I have known Jason Mul­laney for 14 years, and I do not know of a more gen­er­ous per­son with the abil­i­ty to be excel­lent at so many things. 

    He helped me find my first job out here in San Diego after a 10 year hia­tus from the West Coast. He also host­ed an art show for a char­i­ty for fos­ter kids in his house and includ­ed my art, and was kind enough to stock his fridge with veg­gies because he knew I didn’t eat junk food. It was pret­ty fun­ny when he showed me a huge pack of car­rot and cel­ery sticks he bought just for me (he was kind like that), he talked a mile a minute about it and always has a con­ta­gious ener­gy and excite­ment about him. Parts of him remind me of a lit­tle kid with his love for gadgets. 

    He is the kind of man who goes the extra mile for friends (we shared a small cubi­cle togeth­er for a while so I got to see the mag­ic that is Jason Mul­laney in action), whether it’s buy­ing their home or refi­nanc­ing, he had a line of peo­ple want­i­ng to do busi­ness with him because of his gen­eros­i­ty. I should be so lucky to have Jason on any team of mine! 

    I can’t wait to see how he blos­soms and makes waves with his life, he is a mover and a shak­er and will change the world. He real­ly made me a bet­ter per­son and inspired me to do more with my life. I will be one of the peo­ple wait­ing there on the day of his release. God­speed my friend. Lee

  7. Holly Watt (Teeters)

    I first met Jason when I moved to Coro­n­a­do in 1998. Over the years on and off I ran into Jason or one of his bud­dies. Jason was always a won­der­ful guy, nice and car­ing. I do not know all the details of what hap­pened with his busi­ness but remem­ber think­ing to myself when I first heard that there had to be some­thing that the sto­ries were miss­ing. He was always such a fun, car­ing, giv­ing guy to any­one that I knew.

  8. Excel­lent writ­ing, Nik, and thanks for bring­ing anoth­er perspective. 

    I had only one encounter with Jason Mul­laney but even that was enough for me to expe­ri­ence his gen­eros­i­ty. I was out with a cou­ple of friends and we end­ed up meet­ing up with Jason at a wine bar some­where in Hill­crest, I believe. One of my friends was roman­ti­cal­ly involved with him at the time – I can’t be sure now whether they were break­ing out as a cou­ple or break­ing up or in some wild vac­il­la­tion between the two – but I remem­ber that he was a pleas­ant guy and he end­ed up pick­ing up the tab for all of us at the end of our evening at the wine bar. Back in those days where the dia­bol­i­cal com­bi­na­tion of my low pay and poor spend­ing habits com­bined to ren­der me per­pet­u­al­ly short on cash, this gen­eros­i­ty was some­thing I very much appre­ci­at­ed. As far as whether he picked up that tab with oth­er people’s mon­ey, well that’s a sto­ry I don’t know any­thing about. And, I imag­ine, nei­ther do most of the peo­ple writ­ing about it. Mark Twain said: “Every man is a moon and has a side which he turns toward nobody: you have to slip around behind it if you want to see it.” My hope for this per­son, who seems to be a car­ing, gen­er­ous soul at heart is that he slips around behind him­self, begins to know the side he’s turned toward nobody, learns to love it and ulti­mate­ly finds peace and hap­pi­ness with­in himself.

  9. As a for­mer SEAL of 20 years and Team­mate of Jason’s — I agree with you whole-heart­ed­ly. Nik. I pur­chased a home through Jason’s com­pa­ny and don’t have a sin­gle neg­a­tive thing to say about the entire process. Jason and his part­ners were fair, forth­com­ing and hon­est. I knew Jason to be a “squared-away” Team-guy in the Teams and was a sol­id Oper­a­tor when we went through Comms school togeth­er. Again, I have noth­ing but good things to say about my deal­ings with Jason and will stick up for him in any way avail­able to me. Let me know…

  10. Kari Kohen-Leasure

    I first met Jason when he was going thru BUD/s and lat­er he and my hus­band served togeth­er in the TEAMS. Jason had a key to our home we nev­er locked in Nado and we had one for his, we took turns host­ing play­dates with our lab pup­pies. Jason has always been a very hon­est, loy­al, trust­wor­thy, emphat­ic and lov­ing per­son. He is some­one that we could be loud and bois­ter­ous with, splash around in the largest hot tub in SoCal one minute and rely on to be there the next in time of need. It is a shame that our oth­er team­mates don’t have the courage or loy­al­ty to come for­ward and sup­port him.

  11. For Jason and the world. Jason- thank you for your friend­ship over so many years and I am sor­ry I haven’t been there more for you my friend. No excus­es. You can gut punch me when you are out! 

    I have known Jason for 20 years and have so many sto­ries we could write a book. He helped me find my way after col­lege and was one of my role mod­els and men­tors to join the Navy. He made sure I got my ass extra kicked in BUD/S but was also there to help guide me. Thanks for all the good times. 

    Jason has a huge heart and was always there for any­one. He was there when I need­ed help. From help­ing me with my gear to com­ing out and help­ing me fix my Harley when it died on the side of the road, if you dialed Jason M, he was there. 

    A man with hon­or and integri­ty, a man with courage and patience. I am proud to have Jason as a friend and blessed to have spent my younger years with such an incred­i­ble person.

  12. Deno Borghi (Vinny)

    In my mind Jason is a super hero

    As a kid he played an irre­place­able role as a father fig­ure in my life. He taught me every­thing from why to open doors for oth­ers to how to piss with­out hav­ing my pants around my ankles and how to write my name in cursive.

    Most of my best mem­o­ries where with him and I’m sure that some­day soon, some of my great­est adven­tures will be with him. I recall when he would pick me up ear­ly from school and dri­ve me around Coro­n­a­do island just to spend time with me. I can recall sit­ting for what seemed like hours at the Star­bucks while he did busi­ness with peo­ple and I enjoyed it just because I loved being around him. We would skate­board around the island and he would play catch with me no mat­ter what . Jason was the step dad of any kid’s dreams . My moth­er and him nev­er got mer­ried but he cared for me like I was his own kid.

    Jason was there for me no mat­ter what. One day years down the road I need­ed some­one to talk to and I had­n’t spo­ken to Jason for years. I did­n’t have his email or his phone num­ber so I Googled his name and found his assis­tant in his Com­pa­ny who I had nev­er met or heard of before. I sent him an email say­ing that I want­ed to speak to Jason . That night I received a reply say­ing that he knew exact­ly who I was, and with­in min­utes I was Skyp­ing Jason from the oth­er side of the world . 

    He is car­ing , smart and per­son­al­ly a moti­va­tion for every­thing I do as a man today . 

    I’m hon­ored to know him in the way that I do.

  13. I’ve known Jason since he was a lit­tle boy as best friend to my son. After grad­u­a­tion I was not sur­prised at to hear Jason lat­er became a Navy Seal. I had men come to my house to speak on his behalf for the high­est clear­ance. My son also joined the Navy. Served 4 yrs active, 4 years reserve while going to col­lege and then was encour­aged by Jason to become active and go for Seals. He did and Jason was there well into his train­ing always encour­ag­ing, help­ing giv­ing tips through the ridicu­lous train­ing that makes you a Seal! Only as he approached Hell Week it found that he had bro­ken ver­te­brae in his neck and had to leave and have surgery. Jason was so sup­port­ive. I watched him help peo­ple. When the mar­ket crashed I feel con­fi­dent that Jason did noth­ing mali­cious but like many oth­ers got in over his head. He is a good man! I believe in him and hope the jus­tice dept hears the whole story!

  14. Stephanie Paternostro

    Jason is a man among men. He gives when he sees a need and doesn’t ask for any­thing in return. He would lit­er­al­ly take the shirt off his back and hand it over to some­one who needs it and not even give a thought as to whether he has a spare. He will deal with that small detail lat­er. I have known him for almost ten years now. I have seen him open his home to friends in need, for a night or for months on end. I have seen him loan his car, host social events at his con­do, offer his pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices at no charge, to and for his friends, and friends of friends. This is just a frac­tion of the gen­eros­i­ty and self­less­ness that I have seen Jason exem­pli­fy since I have known him. Jason gives first and thinks of the pos­si­ble cost to him lat­er, if at all. Jason embod­ies and lives the exam­ple most men try to present to the world. Over the last two plus years, I have fought to ensure Jason is well rep­re­sent­ed, to make sure he knows at all times that he is sup­port­ed and loved. His sis­ter, Erinn, has been an invalu­able sup­port as well as an advo­cate for her broth­er. His par­ents and sis­ter Aly, have been a con­stant sup­port to him. His friends who have shown sup­port in var­i­ous ways (you know who you are) have been encour­ag­ing to him in the way that only true friend­ship can pro­vide. I have been able to read and see first-hand the kind of sup­port Jason has. I am hon­ored and proud to love Jason, and stand beside him. 

    Thank you Nik, for post­ing your heart­felt thoughts and for invit­ing oth­ers to do the same.

  15. I worked with Jason from 1998 to 1999. He was always a avail­able for advice while in the Teams. His advice was always trust wor­thy and he was some­body I looked up to as a high­ly thought of Team guy amongst his peers. I now work in the civil­ian sec­tor of our coun­try, where my past cowork­ers seem to care most­ly about them­selves. Self­ish­ness was nev­er the case in the Teams. The Jason I knew had the help first qual­i­ty, ask ques­tions lat­er amongst his team­mates men­tal­i­ty for which most Navy SEALs have genet­i­cal­ly. I wish for brighter days to Jason. Out of this sit­u­a­tion I’m sure he will make a pos­i­tive as I’ve wit­nessed many times work­ing along side the man.

  16. Jason,

    While I don’t know you, I’ve heard about you for a long time. Main­ly from guys on the W coast who have had pos­i­tive inter­ac­tions with you. 

    I’m a huge believ­er in char­ac­ter, and as Nik wrote in his arti­cle — how you behave in small mat­ters tells me how you’ll behave in large mat­ters. I’m hop­ing that all of the char­ac­ter work you’ve done in the past will keep you focused and strong for the upcom­ing fight.

    Think­ing of you and want­i­ng the best.

    Su her­mano,

    CR

  17. Like Erinn, I have been hes­i­tant to speak as well. Not because I feel he is a bad per­son or a crim­i­nal in any way, but because he is fam­i­ly (my cousin). Even though Jason is fam­i­ly, the first time we met, believe it or not, was in Modesto for our grandmother’s funer­al in Feb­ru­ary of 2007. Before we met I heard a bit about him from my par­ents and fam­i­ly about him being in the Navy and becom­ing a SEAL. I was young at the time due to our age gap (13 years) but real­ly looked up to him for what he was and what he was sac­ri­fic­ing for the safe­ty of our coun­try. When we met, I wouldn’t say it was the most oppor­tune time being a funer­al and all but, we’re fam­i­ly so a for­mal or infor­mal intro­duc­tion shouldn’t mat­ter. Upon meet­ing Jason, our hand­shake turned into a big bear hug with this stal­wart guy. Dur­ing and after the funer­al there was small talk, a brief good­bye and to me I just thought that was that.

    I, first­hand, know of the gen­eros­i­ty this man has. I had come home from work one day and my Moth­er con­tact­ed me and was so excit­ed. She had “great news” for me. She had been informed by my Aunt (Jason’s Moth­er) that Jason offered me the oppor­tu­ni­ty of a life­time, to move to San Diego to work beside him to learn the Real Estate busi­ness. Jason, even though he and I are fam­i­ly, did not know me from Adam! And for him to open up his home to me with just one brief meet just shows you the type of man he is. So as the sto­ry goes I did end up mov­ing down there. 

    I had just turned 23 when the deci­sion was made to move down there. I packed up all I could and drove a rental van down to San Diego to stay with a man who I had only met one time! It must’ve been 11 PM when I arrived. And there Jason was, an eager beaver wait­ing for me to arrive! By the time I had one of my bags in his home he basi­cal­ly had the rest of my belong­ings inside already! “This guy moves quick!” I thought. I told myself I have to step up my game, espe­cial­ly with him being a for­mer SEAL! It was an hon­or! For him to pick me, to work beside him was a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty. I had to give it 100% to prove to him I had what it took to “try” to keep up with him. 

    Okay, enough ram­bling about me. I real­ly want peo­ple from both sides of the spec­trum to know what a gen­uine, amaz­ing, hon­or­able (I could keep nam­ing all of the pos­i­tive traits Jason has) man that Jason Mul­laney is. Like all who already know him, he would GLADLY take the shirt off of his back time and time and time again to help some­one… even a stranger like me. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the media does not always show the oth­er side of the sto­ry. Like Nik says, we have to let the jus­tice sys­tem work its course, slow and unjust as it is some­times. Please, peo­ple, if you know Jason please give him your sup­port and prayers. He needs all the pos­i­tiv­i­ty and com­pas­sion he can get dur­ing this rough time, for him and his fam­i­ly. There is a hand­ful of respons­es on this blog, but there are HUNDREDS of peo­ple that Jason has helped uncon­di­tion­al­ly over the years. The Real Estate Mar­ket was a volatile time. I am sure there are hun­dreds, if not thou­sands of peo­ple who have been in the same sit­u­a­tion. I know Jason would NOT mean ill will towards anyone. 

    I am tru­ly hon­ored and hum­bled to have met and spent time with Jason. I am proud to call him fam­i­ly and also my friend.

    Love you Bro!

  18. Brian P Ruddick, Jr. US Navy Retired

    I’ve known Jason since the mid 1990’s. We met through mutu­al navy acquain­tances and have been best friends since. We even­tu­al­ly became room­mates for sev­er­al years until he moved out with his girl­friend. We always stayed in touch when one or both of us were deployed over­seas and our friend­ship nev­er diminished.

    Jason has always has been a sol­id guy and has a heart of gold. He was always the first to help some­one out whether it was help­ing some­one move, fix a car or give some­one a place to stay dur­ing hard times. He is also an avid ani­mal lover and has tak­en in many strays over the years and vol­un­teered to pre­vent endan­gered ani­mal poach­ing in oth­er countries. 

    In addi­tion, Jason has extreme­ly strong fam­i­ly val­ues. I’ve seen him inter­act with his par­ents, sis­ters and nephew and nieces numer­ous times and will do any­thing for them any­time. He always want­ed to start his own fam­i­ly, but as far as I know nev­er found the right one, how­ev­er I know he wouldn’t set­tle then any­thing less than a true soul mate he could mar­ry in the eyes of the church. He has deep reli­gious principles. 

    He is and always will be a good friend of mine.

    Bri­an P. Rud­dick Jr. U.S. Navy Retired

  19. I’m sure Jason does not remem­ber me, but for a lit­tle while, we were in the same BUD/S pre­train­ing class, which was known as fourth phase back then.
    I did­n’t become a SEAL. I dropped out in Hell Week.
    Sound famil­iar? What the world does not know is just how tough BUD/S is even before Hell Week. So many guys give up, get injured, or fail because of the tech­ni­cal aspects of train­ing. Even before Hell Week start­ed, we lost about 40% of our class. When Hell Week was over, only 24 guys remained, and they became known as “the hard core 24.” Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I was not among them.
    I’m very thank­ful to have expe­ri­enced Hell Week. Jason helped me get there. I was hav­ing a very dif­fi­cult time with life sav­ing. I’ve been told that life sav­ing tech­niques taught at BUD/S are more tech­ni­cal than those taught in stan­dard life­guard train­ing. I could not trav­el through the water car­ry­ing a drown­ing vic­tim uti­liz­ing the tech­nique taught. The BUD/S instruc­tors could not help me despite their exten­sive train­ing. Oth­er stu­dents could not give me good advice beyond giv­ing me pep talks. I looked every­where and tried every­thing. Noth­ing worked. I was on the verge of not being able to pass life sav­ing, which would have got­ten me rolled back or kicked out. How­ev­er, when I talked to Jason, every­thing changed. He showed me anoth­er tech­nique that no one else had been able to demon­strate. I passed with fly­ing col­ors when oth­er guys failed. I was able to go to Hell Week and expe­ri­ence the tough­est week at BUD/S instead of being dropped from train­ing for an insignif­i­cant tech­ni­cal­i­ty. That did much to save my dig­ni­ty, as not being able to sur­vive train­ing is dev­as­tat­ing for a defeat­ed candidate.
    At least I could say that it took the tough­est week at BUD/S to bring me down. For that, I am great­ful to Jason.
    After drop­ping out of train­ing, a defeat­ed BUD/S can­di­date must go to anoth­er part of the navy and per­form well as if the dev­as­tat­ing DOR (drop on request) nev­er hap­pened. My job was air­craft mechan­ic, known in the navy as AD. It requires thick skin and very strict atten­tion to detail. It took me a long time to get over my failed BUD/S can­di­da­cy. Know­ing that it took Hell Week to bring me down helped me exten­sive­ly. I cred­it Jason for help­ing me sur­vive until that fate­ful week. I know that he does not remem­ber me, but I will nev­er for­get. Thanks always!

    AD1 Mark Owen USNR (ret)

  20. Selin Demirkazik

    I’ve read this essay and all the com­ments sev­er­al times today…It is a relief to know that Jas has so many friends and a beat­i­ful fam­i­ly to sup­port him…
    Jason is not only a good man but also the best, the most car­ing per­son I’ve ever met…I am look­ing for­ward to see­ing him get this over with very soon…Jas deserves the best…

  21. Although non mil­i­tary myself, I met Jason through some oth­er SEAL friends over a decade ago and we’ve gone from being great friends to more like fam­i­ly in the years since.
    From the start I was so impressed with how self­less Jason was to every­one in his life, and I had nev­er met Any­one so respect­ed and adored by every­one he knew.
    I remem­ber ear­ly on, I was liv­ing 45 min North of down­town San Diego and a promis­ing date sur­faced with a girl I real­ly liked for lat­er that night while I was hang­ing out at Jason’s (5 min from down­town). I was bare­ly off the phone with the girl and J had two dif­fer­ent din­ner jack­ets dan­gling in front of me (with a big smile), so I did­n’t have to go all the way home to change or kick start the rela­tion­ship at a nice restau­rant in a t‑shirt. He always hap­pi­ly shared any­thing and every­thing he had if it would make some­one’s sit­u­a­tion or day better.
    Lat­er on a Harley trip, I rode from Den­ver to San Diego only stop­ping for gas and was so tired I was hal­lu­ci­nat­ing by the time I got home. Jason always seemed to care about my well being like a broth­er, and the next Harley trip I took, he gave me a comped room he had saved at a half way point so I would­n’t push it- he knew I would. I’ve since wised up.
    In-between my many moves and some dif­fi­cult times, Jason gave me his spare room (some­times for many months) and would­n’t take any mon­ey. I can’t express in words how much that helped me and I tru­ly miss those days of camaraderie.
    When my Father unex­pect­ed­ly died in 2010 Jason knew I was a total mess and he just took over, made all my trav­el arrange­ments so I could focus on mak­ing calls and oth­er arrange­ments with my fam­i­ly- it was huge.
    Jason con­stant­ly went out of his way to help and take care of fam­i­ly, friends, co-work­ers, ani­mals, and total strangers. He’s absolute­ly made an Epic impact in my life, and helped me be a better/ mindful/ helpful/ thank­ful person.

  22. This arti­cle needs to be pub­li­cized more…I’m not a seal. Just a father of 2 and a per­son who is active­ly in real estate & financ­ing like Jason was. I met Jason through a friend. I want­ed to find some­one that i could fol­low and mir­ror into being suc­cess­ful and with­in a few days i real­ized he was one of the most dili­gent, hard work­ing & self­less peo­ple I had ever met. Every­one screams how much mon­ey they’ve lost and when that hap­pens, peo­ple try and point the fin­ger to the one that is putting in the hard work. The bot­tom line is, an invest­ment is an invest­ment, you win some, you lose some, that’s life. Nobody speaks about how Jason lost money…because he nev­er cried about it. Jason is an asset to soci­ety, always help­ing, always striv­ing to improve, if there’s any­one out there that deserves to be free, it’s this guy! Cheers Jason! Any­thing you need, i’ll always be will­ing to help you! 

    Much Love,
    Ian H. Boshoff

  23. Robert & Olivia Hines

    Jason’s chance to tell his side of the sto­ry was long over­due. It con­firms what his friends and fam­i­ly have known from the begin­ning. No one who has known Jason for any­time at all would believe he would steal from any­one much less a friend. I remem­ber when Jason found out I was going to pro­pose to Olivia he knew some­one that had a dia­mond, bought it and let us make pay­ments on a no inter­est loan. Jason has always treat­ed the peo­ple around him with respect, regard­less of how much you had or did­n’t have. To Jason a friend was a friend. I had a mutu­al friend ask me what I thought of Jason. My reply was I would trust him with my life and my wife. There aren’t many peo­ple I would say that about. As a for­mer Marine I would have proud to share a fight­ing hole with my friend Jason. I am look­ing for­ward to tip­ping a beer and play­ing some pool with him in the near future.

    Robert and Olivia Hines

  24. My name Mike Hud­son and first I want to say that I am very sor­ry it took me so long to find this way of speak­ing up for my old friend and for­mer stu­dent. I was the lead coor­di­na­tor and on-site EMT and para­medic instruc­tor for a pilot pro­gram for NSWG1 from 1994–1999. I taught a good por­tion of my cours­es at the teams in SEAL Team one and Team Three class­rooms. I pre­cept­ed and men­tored many team guys on my city of san diego para­medic ambu­lance. Jason was one of my stu­dents and para­medic interns. What most peo­ple don’t know is that Jason was a SOT (which back in the day was the des­ig­na­tion for a SEAL Team medic) From day one in the para­medic course he was a stand-up guy and always will­ing to go the extra length to learn the art of sav­ing lives, to do things the right way in order to take care of his injured friends. He was a con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al and a god damn good medic. He often rode extra shifts on my para­medic unit, when he didn’t have to. Extra shifts that would even­tu­al­ly make him a bet­ter medic and ulti­mate­ly a bet­ter SOT. We were a very busy unit (medic 201 down­town SD) and I got to see Jason shine as a med­ical provider. He tru­ly cared about being the best at what he did. 

    Ty Woods and Jason were two of my most mem­o­rable para­medic stu­dents and it kills me to see Ty dead and now Jason Mul­laney in jail. 

    To the per­son who start­ed this cam­paign I want to say a hearty thank you for doing this dam­age con­trol page. You are a good man and one that Jason I am sure is proud to call a friend. 

    In clos­ing; to the team guys that Jason (sup­pos­ed­ly) screwed over I can say this: Jason would have tak­en a round for any one of you and you know it. So rather than throw your friend under the bus take a step back and look at the big pic­ture. It’s only mon­ey and it can be replaced. Your friend and team mate can­not. Don’t trade mon­ey for his life. You didn’t lose your life, yet Jason is los­ing his life day by day as he sits in jail. You just lost your abil­i­ty to buy a plas­ma TV or retire ear­ly and go fish­ing. So your daugh­ter is going to have to work a job while she goes to col­lege like most kids do any­way. If that mon­ey is so impor­tant to your future go do a bull­shit diplo­mat­ic pro­tec­tion deploy­ment with TC or Dyna­corp and you will make $100,000 in 6–8 months, espe­cial­ly as a for­mer Navy SEAL

    Does he deserve a sol­id tune-up? YES. Does he deserve to rot in jail with rapists, child moles­ters and mur­der­ers? HELL NO!! 

    Don’t let Jason spend any more time in a cage. You are essen­tial­ly com­mit­ting him to years of men­tal anguish and slow tor­ture. It’s no way for a man like him to live. If the tables were turned he would beat your ass, buy you a beer and call it square. He would maybe not for­get but he would for sure for­give and so should you. Don’t tes­ti­fy against him, tes­ti­fy in his defense.

    Stay strong bro.

    Your old friend and para­medic instruc­tor; Hud

  25. I should begin by say­ing I am a for­mer Navy SEAL, and an investor (“vic­tim”) who lost mon­ey, who pro­vid­ed state­ments to both the pros­e­cu­tion and the defense. 

    I am also one of the many peo­ple Jason has helped and Jason is my friend. Because I have been on both sides of this case I have tremen­dous respect for all those on both sides of this case. i

    The only thing I am absolute­ly sure of these days is that I am absolute­ly not sure about any­thing I thought I knew about this case. I do not know all of the details and I’m sure that’s true on both sides of this case and prob­a­bly for a vari­ety of very good rea­sons. I will not say I was led or mis­led to believe any­thing, but I will say I got caught up in the swirl of what I saw on Fox news and read on the inter­net about Jason. For that I am sor­ry and “ashamed of myself “just does­n’t quite cut-it. I will say I have not seen any evi­dence that shows Jason inten­tion­al­ly engaged in any­thing deceitful. 

    I pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion based on what I thought, what I’d heard, what I thought I’d heard, and I nev­er heard Jason’s side of the sto­ry until a few weeks ago. I have not seen any black and white evi­dence that incrim­i­nates him of any­thing oth­er than being a man who lost mon­ey, was under­stand­ably regret­ful and ashamed, and who was aban­doned by me ‑as a friend-for a while. I know under­stand that Jason was not not allowed-or was dis­cour­aged-from telling his side of the sto­ry for legal rea­sons. That changes everything. 

    I got caught up in the swirl of rumors and news cov­er­age and upon reflec­tion I see how I allowed rumors and my imag­i­na­tion to inter­fere with my own per­son­al knowl­edge of his char­ac­ter. I know Jason to be an hon­est, depend­able, hon­or­able man. He may have lost mon­ey and been so ashamed he left town but in my eyes that’s not a crime-it’s just a real­ly bad, regretable idea. 

    I feel the pros­e­cu­tion had a job to do and they did it and did it well. I have so much respect for the pros­e­cu­tion it’s hard to write this with­out feel­ing dis­re­spect­ful. I love every­one, but I do not see how it will be of ben­e­fit to any­one for Jason to remain incar­cer­at­ed any longer. 

    Jason, I love you and I will always love you and you are my broth­er. I hope that oth­ers will read this, search their hearts and remem­ber what they also know to be per­son­al­ly true of your char­ac­ter, and give you their sup­port. I can only speak for myself and assume respon­si­bil­i­ty for my part in want­i­ng to you out of jail right now. I love you brother. 

    Love Jim

    God Bless You
    Praise Jesus

  26. Always been my boy. I was not a SEAL, was an amphib­ian rocon corps­man. Met a bunch of Jason’s HM BUD’s mates in San Anto­nio TX at goat lab cir­ca 1993. He was always a great guy, I totaled his 64′ Mus­tang just shy of our HS grad­u­a­tion night and he took the blame, will nev­er for­get it. Good man, a patri­ot, hap­py memo­r­i­al day bro, please let me know how to get in con­tact with him if any­one knows. Real­ly need to say hi. 

    JS-

  27. I met Jason in 2011 in Tuc­son AZ , I was mak­ing a tough real estate deci­sion and he gave me good infor­ma­tive advice about what I should do regard­ing a short sale of one of my prop­er­ties. It seemed obvi­ous to me that he has real knowl­edge of the busi­ness. I took his advice and it worked out well for me.

  28. Many thanks for writ­ing this.

    I’m one of the lucky souls that Jason saved.

    I can’t put into words what a broth­er he has been and I will for­ev­er be indebted.

    Ice.

  29. Raff
    It is a shame to see how every one grilled him
    He has been my friend my broth­er my daugh­ter hero.
    He nev­er robbed any­one he nev­er had the inten­tion nor a plan ehat went wrong no one knows but one thing is for sure he is and always be a straigt up guy
    Like Casey said he will go above and beyond the call of duty to help any­one assist any­one lend any­one in need and always with a big smile noth­ing was too much for him when it was for helping.
    God Bless you and it is a priv­ilige being your friend still!!!
    I lost every­thing also help­ing keep him a float untill i had noth­ing else and Im sure im was short in every­thing comoared to Him
    Hope­ful­ly we will meet again Pau sure miss­es you !!

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