You ain’t got to lie to kick, but sometimes you do have to lie to win sympathy from the public.  At least that’s what Timothy Poe was thinking when he decided to enter himself as a contestant on the music reality show “America’s Got Talent”.

Timothy started out by gloryfing his milatary career by claiming that he sustained brain damage that left him with a speech impediment from a  grenade blast while serving his country.

However, a spokesman for the Minnesota National Guard refuted Poe’s claim, saying that, while Poe did serve his country overseas, there is no record of the injury he described on the show.

If that wasn’t enough, during his audition process Timothy also submitted a falsified photo of himself from his milary duty that was later found out to be someone else..

The photo was taken from the US Department of Defense website with the caption:

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Norman Bone directs movement as his patrol turns around on a narrow path in the mountains of Parwan province in Afghanistan on Oct. 25, 2006.”

Yet, Poe still maintains that his story is true.  

TMZ  is now reporting the photo above of a soldier shown during Poe’s audition is not Poe at all, but rather a different soldier altogether.

Staff Sgt. Norman Bone — the man who’s actually pictured in the photo — contacted the website to set the record straight. And he’s not happy about the case of mistaken identity.

“First thing that came to my mind was ‘Why would this lying son of a bitch do this?’” Bone, who serves in El Paso, Texas, told TMZ. “I’m absolutely furious. Been seeing red all day.”

The caption goes on to identify Bone as “a patrol leader for the 561st Military Police Company, Fort Campbell, Ky., attached to 10th Mountain Division.”

A spokesman for FremantleMedia, “America’s Got Talent’s” production company, apologized for the error in a statement provided to TheWrap, noting that the photo “was supplied to us by Tim and used on the show in good faith. It has now been removed and will not be used again.”

The latest revelation adds further fuel to speculation that Poe is embellishing his military record.

Watch Poe’s audition — complete with use of the photo, at approximately the 1:12 mark — below.