The head of the Armed Forces Foundation, a charitable organization that assists service members and families dealing with physical and mental health problems, is also an assassin who "take[s] down governments," according to NASCAR driver Kurt Busch.
Busch made the startling accusation against Patricia Driscoll this week in a Delaware court room, where he was testifying in connection with a criminal complaint Driscoll brought against him, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Driscoll also leads a surveillance systems company with government and military contracts and has testified before Congress on drugs and border protection. She had been Busch's girlfriend for four years, until last November, AP reported.
Busch made his allegations during a court appearance in opposition to Driscoll's request for a "no-contact" order. She has alleged he assaulted her last year in his motorhome at the Dover International Speedway, grabbing her by the throat and slamming her head into a wall three times, AP has reported.
Driscoll was named president of Armed Forces Foundation in 2003, during which time annual revenues climbed from $100,000 to $8 million, the organization's website states. The charity has provided more than $95 million in assistance to service members, veterans and their families, it says.
Busch, who goes by the nickname "The Outlaw," said Driscoll told him she was a mercenary and that she showed him photos of people she allegedly killed.
He quoted her as boasting: "I take down foreign governments. I own Washington."
He told the court Driscoll repeatedly claimed to have carried out assassinations in Central and South America and Africa. In his testimony he claimed she once left a hotel room they were staying at in El Paso, Texas, dressed in camouflage gear, but returned later wearing a trench coat over an evening gown covered with blood, the news service reported.
Busch also told the court that Driscoll claimed a female character in the film "Zero Dark Thirty" – about the mission to kill Osama bin Laden – was a composite of her and some other women.
Driscoll called Busch's claims "outlandish" in an interview with the AP.
"These statements made about being a trained assassin, hired killer, are ludicrous and without basis and are an attempt to destroy my credibility," she told the news service. She said she found it "interesting" that the allegations "come straight from a fictional move-script I've been working on for eight years."
In addition to heading up the Armed Forces Foundation, Driscoll is chief executive officer of Frontline Defense Systems LLC in Washington, DC, which provides surveillance systems for the intelligence community and the Defense Department.
Her biography on the Frontline website says she "spent the majority of her career in the narcotics and intelligence world. While working abroad, many issues came up at home that brought her to Washington DC, where over the last nine years she has developed strong relationships in the House, Senate, and the White House. Her strongest ally's are the Armed Services Committee, Appropriations, Ways and Means, the Homeland Security Committee, and the Intelligence Committee."
She also states in her biography that she was an advisor for field directors of the Border Patrol and Customs to Congress and Headquarters Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and was paid by the British Embassy to tour England and speak on doing business with the Department of Homeland Security. On the tour she served as an expert on panels dealing with the department's law enforcement and security and intelligence components, she said.
She has testified before Congress about narcotics, human trafficking, immigration and border protection.
She co-authored the book "Hidden Battles on Unseen Fronts, Stories of American Soldiers with Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD" and contributed to "The Healing Heroes Children's Book," and was and was executive producer of "That Which I Love Destroys Me," a documentary offering the firsthand accounts of two special ops troops struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder society. The documentary was financed by the Armed Forces Foundation.
-- Bryant Jordan can be reached at bryant.jordan@military.com
