The FBI, in conjunction with the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, has commenced a fraud investigation of professional speaker Bill Hillar, a past University adjunct instructor.
Prior to the investigation, Hillar taught workshops on human trafficking and terrorism at Middlebury College’s Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, and had occasionally instructed drug trafficking, human trafficking and other University summer classes to hundreds of students through the Substance Abuse Prevention Program on campus.
This fall, student veterans taking Hillar’s class at the Monterey Institute challenged his credentials as a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel and recipient of a University of Oregon doctorate, saying that he did not exhibit the mannerisms of a high-ranking army officer.
Hillar had also claimed a personal relationship with human trafficking, boasting that the 2008 action movie “Taken,” starring Liam Neeson, was inspired by events in his life and his daughter’s kidnapping, enslavement and murder. The movie’s directors and writers have never mentioned Hillar in interviews.
“The story that he told was very sad, and he did a very good job in making everybody feel horrible,” Multnomah Sheriff’s Deputy Keith Bickford told the Los Angeles Times last week. “If he is a fraud, he’s hurt a lot of people and taken advantage of a horrible, horrible crime.”
The Los Angeles Times reported that the Monterey Institute has publicly apologized for not confirming Hillar’s resume pre-hire, and has decided not to welcome him back to campus.
During his trips to Oregon, Hillar taught one-credit University classes as an adjunct instructor, who are typically part-time, non-salaried, non-tenure-track faculty members who are paid per class they teach and often do not need a doctorate.
“Hillar served as an adjunct instructor in the UO’s Substance Abuse Prevention Program, teaching courses off-and-on for the past seven or eight years,” University spokesperson Joe Mosley said via e-mail.
The resume Hillar submitted to Monterey stated he held a doctorate degree from the University. The University’s Office of the Registrar confirmed Hillar was enrolled in a Ph.D. program in health from fall 1970 to fall 1973, but never earned a degree.
This discrepancy in his credentials has prompted state and federal law enforcement officials to suspect fraud.
Mosley said questions arose within the University about Hillar’s background about two weeks ago when the registrar’s office officially confirmed his lack of degree.
The University also said it does not expect Hillar to teach any upcoming classes on campus, but did not explicitly state Hillar’s absence as being a result of the ongoing investigation.
“He is not currently teaching at the UO and it is not anticipated that he will in the future,” Mosley said.
According to the Office of Media Relations, the University is cooperating with investigations by the FBI and the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.
Hillar had been expected to give a keynote speech at a University of Portland conference on human trafficking earlier this month but did not attend, according to the school.
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