FERNDALE, Mich. -- Authorities said a Sterling Heights man faces charges after being spotted in a suburban Detroit nightclub illegally wearing a U.S. Marine uniform and falsely telling police he had just returned from Iraq.

Forty-one-year-old De Hieu Tran appeared for a pretrial hearing in a Ferndale courtroom Thursday.

He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of unauthorized wearing of a military uniform and driving on a suspended license.

Officer Jeff Pearce, of the Ferndale police, is also a former Marine captain. He and another Ferndale officer went on a random stop at Boogie Fever nightclub last May.

That’s when he noticed Tran dressed in Marine camouflage uniform with captain’s bars on the collar.

“I recalled from being in the Marine Corps., when I was in, you weren’t allowed to wear that uniform in public,” said Pearce.

When Pearce confronted Tran, Tran said the rules had changed and he had just gotten back from his fourth tour of duty in Iraq.

“I just couldn’t imagine how he could end up in Michigan just a few hours later, and in a bar,” Pearce said.

Pearce pressed Tran a little further and Tran took off the captain’s bars.

“He took them off in seconds, and handed them over to me. I knew right then he had been impersonating a Marine officer,” said Pearce.

Police let Tran go that night but followed up with the U.S. Marine Corps, which confirmed Tran had never been in the military.

Prosecutors then issued a warrant. Tran was arrested in Sterling Heights on unrelated identity theft charges in January.

Investigators there then discovered he was wanted in Ferndale.

Tran will soon be sentenced for impersonating a military officer. He heads back to court Monday on the identity theft charges.