Thomas Gounley

News-Leader

Clarification: Robert O'Block was shot once. A previous version of this story may have been unclear.

Robert O'Block, who was found dead with a gunshot wound Sunday night, believed his life had been the classic American success story.

He said so in the book he published called "United for Truth," comparing himself to other "visionaries" like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Alexander Graham Bell. Over the course of more than 300 pages, United for Truth tells the story of O'Block and the Springfield-based companies he founded — and pushes back against those who cast a critical eye on his work.

"If there is one thing that the history of mankind teaches, it is that success breeds contempt," page 223 reads. "No one who has ever reached the pinnacle of success has avoided wandering through the valley of the critics."

O'Block certainly seems to have bettered himself over the course of his 66-year life. He has described himself as growing up "extremely poor" in southeastern Kansas. When he died, it was in a 4,800-square-foot home appraised at more than $700,000, in a gated subdivision built around a golf course.

O'Block was one of two people found dead in the home in the Highland Springs subdivision by deputies with the Greene County Sheriff's Office late Sunday. Tiffany Fleming, 27, had also been shot, according to authorities. The two were in a romantic relationship.

Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott hasn't described what his investigators believe happened in the home, beyond stating that he was not looking for additional suspects and that he does not believe the public is in danger.

Asked directly Monday if the situation was a murder-suicide, Arnott said that was a possibility, but that he wanted to wait for autopsies to be performed. He has not discussed who fired the shots.

O'Block was a onetime college criminal justice professor who ended up building a network of prestigious-sounding associations that offered, for a fee, to certify individuals in fields such as homeland security, forensics, psychotherapy and integrative medicine.

His company was paid millions to teach sailors for the U.S. Navy, but also came under fire for allegedly granting credentials to nearly anyone whose check cleared. The claim that he once certified a cat appears to have particularly annoyed him.

O'Block was married four times, and had three children, according to one of his ex-wives. Court records indicate an individual once obtained a protection order against him. In 2003, he was sued in federal court by a woman who said he sexually harassed her.

O'Block worked for a campus and small-town police department while attending college, and appears to have maintained a love of law enforcement. He spent years as a reserve deputy with the Christian County Sheriff's Office.

The News-Leader has reached out to family and friends of Fleming, but has received little in the way of response. Large portions of O'Block's life, however, are detailed in public records and past media coverage, as well as his book.

The early years

O'Block was born in 1951, and grew up in the Pittsburg, Kansas, area. His book says that, while in college, he worked as a dispatcher for campus security at what is now known as Pittsburg State University, and then for a time as a police officer in the nearby town of Frontenac.

O'Block's personal website says he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in sociology from Pittsburg State, and a doctorate in philosophy from Kansas State University. His book says he received the doctorate at age 26. All mentions of O'Block on his personal and company websites refer to him as Dr. Robert O'Block, though he wasn't a doctor in a medical sense.

"You had to call him Dr. O'Block," said Van Lee Shipley, who worked for O'Block in Springfield from January 2012 to June 2013. "If someone called him Robert O'Block, he would get visibly upset."

After receiving his doctorate, O'Block worked as a professor of criminal justice at Wichita State University and Appalachian State University in North Carolina, according to his book.

He came to Missouri in the early 1990s to work at College of the Ozarks near Branson. He didn't work at the college long, but it's unclear exactly when and why he left; the college didn't respond to a request for comment.

O'Block's website indicates he founded the American College of Forensic Examiners International, the first of his organizations offering certifications, in 1992.

His personal life

O'Block was married four times, according to Agneta Stoken, his second wife. In an interview Tuesday, she told the News-Leader he had three children, two with her and one with his first wife.

Stoken said she was married to O'Block from 1984 to 1992. She said O'Block "wasn't easy to live with."

"He was a dominant person," she said. "He liked to have his way."

Stoken said she was not in close contact with O'Block, and did not believe their children were either. She said she was surprised to hear of his death.

Greene County court records indicate O'Block's had a marriage that ended with divorce in 1998, and that another marriage was annulled in 2005.

In 2003, O'Block and the American College of Forensic Examiners were sued in federal court by a woman who worked for the company from September 2001 to April 2002.

The woman, Stefanie Bohrer, said she began a romantic relationship with O'Block that October. When she terminated the relationship in February, Bohrer "immediately received a reduction in pay, lost her employment benefits, and was required to perform more work," according to the lawsuit.

Bohrer said in the lawsuit that O'Block "made improper comments about her and their relationship" and "entered her place of residence and physically grabbed her without her consent."

Bohrer's lawsuit also alleged that the company was "an alter ego" of O'Block, in the sense that he had complete control of it and "dominated its will to accomplish his personal interests." The company paid non-business expenses of O'Block "and members of his family, girlfriends and employees," the lawsuit alleged.

Bohrer was terminated by the company that April. The case was settled in 2004, according to online court records.

His companies

In 2004, O'Block founded Management Executives, Inc., which appears to have operated as something of an umbrella organization for his associations. In 2011, according to state business registration records, the company's name was changed to Center for National Threat Assessment, Inc.

In addition to certifying individuals, O'Block's organizations also produced magazines and journals sent to members.

Center for National Threat Assessment operates out of an office building at 2750 E. Sunshine St. in Springfield. A voicemail left at the business Tuesday morning was not returned.

In a 2012 YouTube video, O'Block spoke of having about 35 employees. Shipley, who worked as a curriculum editor for the center, said the company had frequent turnover, and that his one-and-a-half years "made me one of the longest-tenured employees there."

Shipley called O'Block "extremely susceptible to mood swings," and said "he would call meetings once or twice a week and he'd just basically pick someone to yell at."

Shipley told the News-Leader it was O'Block's employees that were tasked with writing "United for Truth," and that O'Block had them update the text every year.

One of O'Blocks organizations operated as a nonprofit, meaning it is required to make certain financial information public. Form 990s for the American College of Forensic Examiners International indicate O'Block earned more than $400,000 annually in 2010 and 2011 from that organization and related ones.

One of O'Block's associations, the American Board for Certification in Homeland Security, landed a major client in the federal government. The U.S. Navy paid at least $8.5 million so that sailors could obtain credentials in things like "Disaster Preparedness" and "Sensitive Security Information," according to a 2012 article co-published by the news organization ProPublica and the PBS show Frontline.

The scrutiny

That article, however, also scrutinized O'Block's companies. It was part of a series by the news organizations focusing on the fact that "expert witnesses routinely sway trial verdicts with testimony about fingerprints, ballistics, hair and fiber analysis and more, but there are no national standards to measure their competency or ensure that what they say is valid."

The article reported that some individuals were using easily-obtained certifications from O'Block's organizations to bolster their status as expert witnesses.

Here's how the author of the ProPublica piece described the process of becoming a certified "forensic consultant" through one of O'Block's organizations:

"One afternoon early last year, I punched in my credit card information, paid $495 to the American College of Forensic Examiners International Inc. and registered for an online course.

"After about 90 minutes of video instruction, I took an exam on the institute’s web site, answering 100 multiple choice questions, aided by several ACFEI study packets.

"As soon as I finished the test, a screen popped up saying that I had passed, earning me an impressive-sounding credential that could help establish my qualifications to be an expert witness in criminal and civil trials.

"For another $50, ACFEI mailed me a white lab coat after sending my certificate."

The article quoted John Bridges, a former Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator who was hired as ACFEI’s president and chief executive in 2010, only to leave after nine months.

“Based on my perception of what went on related to standards and quality, it operated like a certification mill,” Bridges told ProPublica.

O'Block said he believed he was making the field of forensics more accessible, and that it was up to judges to determine whether an individual was qualified to be an expert witness.

In 2002, Steve K. D. Eichel, a licensed psychologist with a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania, wrote of getting his cat certified by one of O'Block's associations, under the name Dr. Zoe D. Katze.

When ProPublica brought it up, O'Block denounced the situation as a "stunt" orchestrated by a member of a competing professional organization.

"ACFEI did not certify a cat…[It] certified a human being who used fraudulent credentials and called himself Dr. Katz,” O’Block said.

Greene County court records indicate that, in 2011 and 2012, O'Block and his company sued two people who wrote about him and it in a negative way on an online discussion board, using phrases like "con artists" and "worthless pieces of paper." One of the statements O'Block objected to was paraphrased in the lawsuit as "they gave a organizational degree to a cat."

Both lawsuits were dismissed, one with prejudice.

Politics, faith and volunteer work

O'Block was a religious man. In 2005, he authored "The 7 Steps to the Cure of Souls." A description of the book on Amazon says it "presents the perspective that the root cause of unhappiness, depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, and all the social problems of our day may be spiritual rather than medical or psychological." No users have reviewed the book.

At the time of his death, O'Block's Facebook profile picture showed him and Fleming posing with Eric Greitens, now the governor of Missouri, and Robert O'Neill, a Navy SEAL who claims to have fired the shots that killed Osama bin Laden.

The photo was likely taken in early October, when O'Neill appeared at a Greitens campaign event in Springfield.

O'Block donated over $15,000 to Greitens' campaign in 2015 and 2016, according to Missouri Ethics Commission online records. He doesn't appear to have donated at least $5,000 at once to any other state and local candidates dating back to 2008, when the commission's online records begin.

The other public posts on O'Block's Facebook page largely consist of pro-Donald Trump and anti-Hillary Clinton content he shared during last year's presidential campaign.

O'Block became a reserve deputy with the Christian County Sheriff's Office in November 2010, according to Sheriff Brad Cole.

That same year, O'Block created Business Owners Supporting Sheriffs (BOSS), an organization that provides financial support to sheriff's offices, according to its website. The extent of the organization's work is unclear — Cole said he hadn't heard of it — but a video posted to YouTube in 2012 shows O'Block accepting an award as then-Sheriff Joey Kyle stands by.

Kyle pleaded guilty to embezzling cash from the county in 2015. Cole said O'Block lost his status as a reserve deputy when Cole took over that May, because O'Block wasn't meeting the requirement that he volunteer 16 hours per month.

In July 2016, O'Block received an award from Honor Flight of the Ozarks, part of a network of nonprofits that take military veterans on free trips to Washington D.C. The organization gave O'Block its "Golden Wings Patriotism Award" in appreciation for his "service to the United States Armed Forces veterans past and present and for his contributions" to the organization.

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