Vet Imprisoned for Seeking Benefits

MAL Contends . . . Breaking news, analysis, and commentary from a writer based in Madison, Wisconsin ^ | 5/02/2007 | Michael Leon

[Calpernia]

Madison, Wisconsin—Since March 2007, Airman Keith Roberts has been imprisoned, serving the first few months of a four-year sentence for five counts of federal wire fraud.

Keith Roberts filed for disability benefits in 1999 after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by private and public medical health professionals.

Though not nearly as horrific as many, Roberts' Vietnam-era service (1968-74) affected him badly, and includes an incident in which he was assaulted by the Navy Shore Patrol in 1969, and he witnessed a fellow airman killed in a gruesome aircraft accident, also in 1969, at Naples, Italy where he was stationed.

Roberts jumped through all of the hoops that the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) makes claimants jump through, and was granted service-connected benefits for his diagnosed PTSD in 1999 retroactive to 1993 (later revised to1992), and received over $300,000 in benefits.

Roberts and his wife believed that after a paperwork-endurance ordeal in finding all supporting documents that the VA had finally come through and honored his service, and affirmed his medical condition after the long benefits application process.

The VA

As a Marine Corp Times piece notes of the benefits process (Kelly Kennedy, April 5, 2007), "'The … disability retirement system stacks the deck against injured soldiers by forcing them to prove they have post-traumatic stress disorder …,' said an Army lawyer who helps soldiers appeal their claims."

Worse than a stacked deck, the VA was headed (and still is) by Jim Nicholson, former Republican National Committee Chair (1997-2000) who sports a resume devoid of experience in veterans' advocacy and seems openly hostile to disability compensation, an appearance Nicholson tries to deflect in public statements.

"The amount of dollars involved (in veteran compensation) is huge and the lives involved are important," Nicholson said. "Our number one goal is to take care of those veterans who are deserving," referring to a 2005 VA Inspector General's report on veterans' compensation.

As Keith Roberts was battling the VA, he had no idea that a confluence of political and bureaucratic forces allied with Secretary Nicholson were about to make his previous ordeal seem a walk in the park by comparison.

Roberts collided with the US government's determination to deceive and treat this veteran like a criminal.

VA Turns Against Roberts

Roberts' wife, Deloris, said her family is "devastated."

But they maintain reams of paper documents which appear to sustain their narrative of events in which a vet became a victim of a hostile bureaucracy and an overzealous prosecutor.

In November of 2003, Roberts said he contacted the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) in Illinois by phone, complaining that Roberts had come to believe that the VA was committing fraud in the handling of his benefits claims, according to Roberts' sworn deposition.

The reason behind Roberts' call to the VA is not clear, but he had reportedly become somewhat paranoid, a symptom associated with PTSD.

Roberts spoke to Special Agent Raymond Vasil at the VA OIG who assured Roberts that Vasil would look into the alleged fraud, according to the sworn deposition. Roberts took Vasil's assurance at face value.

Accusing the VA of committing fraud turned out to be a bad move for Roberts' navigation through the VA bureaucracy, which a veteran's advocate called a "culture of denial of veterans' claims, where denying claims gets bureaucrats promoted."

The veteran's advocate spoke on background, out of concern for the political sensitivity of the topic.

After his phone conversation with Roberts, Special Agent Vasil and his assistant Joe Cossairt seized Roberts' VA claims file from the regional VA office in Milwaukee, according to a document in Roberts' VA file dated Dec. 12, 2003.

On March 27, 2004 Special Agent Vasil and Cossairt met with Roberts at his home in Gillett, (Oconto County), Wisconsin, according to Roberts' affidavit, and asked a string of questions that made it clear to Roberts the focus of their questions pertained to the 1969 aircraft accident at Naples, and not the alleged VA fraud.

The VA's Vasil reportedly insisted on a subsequent May 31, 2004 interview to be conducted at the Oconto County Sheriff's office.

At the May 31, 2004 interview, according to Roberts' deposition, Vasil became immediately abusive to Roberts by making a snide remark that "they brought all their paperwork," after Roberts had carried in his large file and supporting evidence.

At the meeting, Vasil asserted that Roberts' 1969 hospitalization after his Shore Patrol incidence was not a valid stressor for the purpose of diagnosing PTSD, though Vasil has no formal authority to issue such a determination, and Roberts had already been diagnosed by medical professionals on this very point. Vasil called Roberts "nothing but a drunk," and reportedly, said the documents Roberts had in possession (a Feb. 6, 1969, "Special Enlisted Personnel Performance Evaluation" pertaining to the death of his fellow airman on Feb. 4, 1969 and consistent with Roberts' said role at the scene) meant "nothing" to Vasil.

Subsequently, after several months of complex machinations through the VA bureaucracy, Roberts' benefits were severed in November 2004.

While Roberts was appealing the decision through the VA channels and was set to appeal to the VA Appeals Court—the US Court of Appeals for Veteran's Claims in Washington D.C.—empowered by federal statute to hear the case, the United States Department of Justice, in the office of the US Atty for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Steven Biskupic, indicted Roberts in April 2005 on six counts of mail fraud.

In September 2005, a superseding indictment changed the charges to five counts of wire fraud.

No investigative agent from the Treasury Department, Secret Service or FBI investigated the allegations of federal mail or wire fraud against Roberts.

Only the VA's Special Agent Vasil conducted an investigation. Though his position title is "special agent," Vasil has no formal law enforcement training or benefit adjudication experience.

Said one hostile veteran advocate, "A cop Vasil is not, just an idiot with a badge."

In one exchange from Vasil's Grand Jury testimony indicating his knowledge of the VA benefits process, upon which the indictment is predicated, Vasil appears weak on his familiarity with VA processes:

Question: "Is that part of your training that you have to know the basics of how these programs work?"

Vasil's Answer: "Yeah. I was briefly kind of instructed when I was hired, and then just while working for them, you have to learn it to investigate the cases."

But Biskupic's office took Roberts to trial, secured a conviction, and this Vietnam-era veteran has been locked up since March.

According to Deloris Roberts, at the trial Roberts' attorney was both unable and apparently disinclined to present any of the exculpatory evidence in Roberts' files to prove his innocence, legal representation that has been criticized by those working with Roberts now.

Biskupic's office says that Roberts "fabricated" his version of events pertaining to the death of his fellow airman.

Why US Atty Biskupic?

A phone call to the press offices of the US Atty for the Eastern District of Wisconsin on this story was unreturned.

US Atty Biskupic has recently taken heavy criticism for stretching federal statues to bring federal prosecutions in public corruption cases (one already infamous case tossed out of an appellate court in April and described as composed of evidence that is "beyond thin") and voter fraud cases (similarly criticized by observers).

With the extraordinary federal indictment and trial of Roberts while the VA issue of Roberts' alleged "fraud" was and is still pending administrative action before the VA, and as of August 30, 2005 pending adjudicative action before the US Court of Appeals for Veteran's Claims in D.C. (which has exclusive jurisdiction over VA claims, per United States Code), Biskupic appears to be responding to the Bush administration's hostility to PTSD claims.

In other words, Congress gave the responsibility for the adjudication of VA claims to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, not the Attorney General of the United States.

In its press release noting the sentencing of Roberts, Biskupic's office quotes John W. Brooks, the Special Agent-in-Charge at the VA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in Chicago. "The VA Office of the Inspector General is mindful that fraudulent claims which take money from deserving veterans cannot be tolerated. …," said Brooks, sounding a lot like VA Secretary Nicholson and one American Enterprise Institute scholar, Dr. Sally Satel

Excerpt

Much more research on this at Michael Leon's site.

[Calpernia]

>>>I accidentally said Richards instead of Roberts, I just assumed you could figure that out.

I assumed you ‘meant’ Keith Roberts; but you also said he wasn’t an airman. And post 6 clearly says he was.

The dates at post 6 also show his time of server being in the Vietnam era.

So, no, I couldn’t figure it out.

I say what I linked at post one. That sentence you keep highlighting isn’t the one that interested me. What interested me was the reference to the Party of Lincoln. The Party of Lincoln, whom he spoke on behalf of, and in many other places, is what ‘affiliates’ of LCR use. He also uses that term when he recruited in LCR chapters.

It is code speak.

[Calpernia]

I say what I linked at post one. = I saw what I linked at post one.

[ansel12]

“Since March 2007, Airman Keith Roberts has been imprisoned, serving the first few months of a four-year sentence for five counts of federal wire fraud. “

Roberts is not an airman, but it doesn’t matter, after reading your home page I think I understand what is going on.

Just believe whatever you choose to believe.

[Calpernia]

What does this say?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1829933/posts?page=6#6

“Roberts was an airman stationed at the Naval Air Facility in Naples, Italy, in 1969.”

[DoorGunner]

“It seems a man affiliated with anti war activists is heading the VA.”

I see a “press release” signed by Nicholson, posted on the LCR website.

This, of itself, has absolutely no probative value. The other links do not seem to make any mention of Nicholson. If he actually is affiliated with any antiwar group, veterans NEED to know.

Can you provide any links as sources of your accusation?

DG

[Calpernia]

See post 12 and the last paragraph of post 21

[Calpernia]

Times archives excerpt - PRE Moran - Nicholson meeting

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985970-2,00.html

Members of Team 100, an elite group of Republicans who have given more than $100,000 to the party, received an extraordinary letter this week from John Moran, finance chairman of Bob Dole’s presidential campaign and former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. As first reported in the Washington Post, Moran charges that the R.N.C. has been hijacked by the Christian Coalition “and others who are adamantly opposed to a moderate agenda”; that these forces (led by Coalition executive director Ralph Reed) engineered the election as R.N.C. chairman of Jim Nicholson, who “will now be beholden to the far right for their support”; and that as a result, the members of Team 100 ought to be “giving consideration to throwing our financial support to a committee or organization that has a more moderate Republican political philosophy.” Saying the Coalition is at a point where it is “exercising significant control” over the R.N.C., Moran suggests that the G.O.P.’s future “is in jeopardy.”

---

During this same timeframe, the Federal Election Commission was suing the Christian Coalition for illegally supporting the Republican party.

---

John Moran told the party’s wealthiest donors to give their money to someone else, because the Republican National Committee is under control by religious extremists.

---

[Calpernia]

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp970304/03040005.htm

---

DATE: Tuesday, March 4, 1997                TAG: 9703040005
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: FRANK RICH 
DATELINE: NEW YORK                          LENGTH:   75 lines

---

SOME BIG DONORS REFUSE TO FINANCE CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE AGENDAA POST-ELECTION SURVEY FOUND THAT CHRISTIAN COALITION SUPPORT MADE VOTERS LESS LIKELY TO VOTE FOR DOLE-KEMP EVERYWHERE EXCEPT THE SOUTH.

To understand why behind-closed-door revolts against the religious right are gathering speed - and cash - at lofty levels of the Republican Party, look at a plebeian congressman like Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. No sooner had 65 million Americans embraced ``Schindler's List'' last Sunday than Coburn denounced NBC for affronting ``decent-minded individuals everywhere'' and hitting an ``all-time low'' by airing a movie with ``multiple gunshot wounds, vile language, full frontal nudity and irresponsible sexual activity.''

Coburn co-chairs the Congressional Family Caucus and is an exemplar of Christian Coalition values: He scores 100 percent on the Pat Robertson-Ralph Reed machine's voter guides. But is he anywhere near the American mainstream that decides national elections? Panicked GOP elders had to school him in the fact that nudity and violence were just plain unavoidable in the Holocaust before he retreated.

It's religious-right poster boys like Coburn who make some Republican leaders fear that their party is doomed to drive away even more women and moderates, thereby continuing its losing streak in presidential elections and risking a bicoastal congressional meltdown. A post-election survey by American Viewpoint, a GOP pollster, for the Log Cabin Republicans found that Christian Coalition support made voters dramatically less likely to vote for Dole-Kemp everywhere except the South.

When Ralph Reed once again lorded his power over the party in January - bragging to the columnist David Broder that ``Christian conservatives were decisive'' in electing James Nicholson to succeed Haley Barbour as GOP chairman - one party powerhouse got sore enough to take action. John Moran - the GOP and then Dole finance chairman in recent years - wrote a letter to 15 other Republican heavy-hitters saying that the Christian Coalition and far right had put the party ``in jeopardy.'' He proposed that big donors give to a separate organization to promote a more moderate GOP.

In an interview, Moran, a 65-year-old retired investor and a self-described ``quiet'' conservative, told me he'd rather be playing golf at home in Florida than fighting for his party. But once his letter leaked out to Dan Balz of The Washington Post, he was deluged with calls from others in the GOP ``donor base'' tired of ``raising money to support a part of the party we don't agree with.'' Two weekends ago in Palm Beach Moran spoke to an executive meeting of Team 100 - the top, six-figure GOP contributors - and found that instead of having to defend himself he was ``really well received.''

Moran says he is ``not trying to split the party.'' He will meet with Reed and be hopeful about Nicholson (``I will give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being'').

But what if the religious right's intransigent litmus tests, especially about abortion, preclude a recentering of the GOP? Won't the Christian Coalition's tough grass-roots organization trump Moran's big bucks?

``Yes, the moderates have the money and the hard right has the organization,'' says Moran, ``but you can build all kinds of organizations with money.'' Tanya Melich, the usually pessimistic author of The Republican War Against Women, says a Moran rebellion could succeed where others have failed because it involves ``white male establishment Republicans - a lot of them, not just a few - and not just Northeastern moderates but those living in areas where the party is basically strong.''

Moran's is not the only closeted post-election GOP insurgency. In Washington, 17 congressmen are organizing the Main Street Coalition - which one of its leaders, Amo Houghton, describes as a mirror image of the Democratic Leadership Council, the group instrumental in nudging the Democratic Party from the left to the Clintonian center. But Main Street is not only an effort to formulate centrist GOP policy. It is recruiting a ``star-studded cast'' of civic leaders, says Rick Lazio, the Long Island congressman, among them top businessmen ready to write checks. ``It's almost scary how easy it is to sell it,'' he adds, which may be as good a poll as any of just how much Main Street and Wall Street Republicans alike are finally willing to challenge the far right. MEMO: Mr. Rich's column is distributed by the New York Times Syndicate,

122 E. 42nd St., New York, N.Y. 10168.

[Calpernia]

http://www.alamo-girl.com/0432.htm

Sample list of PARTY SWITCHING Nicholson had a hand in bringing over to the 'republican' party after the Moran meeting. These people that came in are all Log Cabin and Main Streeters.

[Calpernia]

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E3D71230F933A15752C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

January 20, 1999
G.O.P. Urged to Quit Group Called Racist

The chairman of the Republican National Committee called on his fellow party members today to resign from the Council of Conservative Citizens, saying ''it appears that this group does hold racist views.''

''A member of the party of Lincoln should not belong to such an organization,'' said the chairman, Jim Nicholson.

He appealed directly to Buddy Witherspoon, one of the party's national committee members from South Carolina, to resign from the council. Mr. Witherspoon told Mr. Nicholson that he would not.

Mr. Witherspoon insisted that the council's South Carolina chapter held no racist views, but was simply an advocate for conservative causes, especially the right to display the Confederate flag in the South.

The council, based in St. Louis, has become a national embarrassment for the committee in recent weeks amid reports that two Republicans, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the majority leader, and Representative Bob Barr of Georgia, spoke at its meetings. Both have distanced themselves from the group.

[Calpernia]

See my post 21:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1829933/posts?page=21#21

Note: ‘Party of Lincoln’

Now see my post 30

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1829933/posts?page=30#30

‘’A member of the party of Lincoln should not belong to such an organization,’’ said the chairman, Jim Nicholson.

[Calpernia]

NOTE again, Party of Lincoln:

>>>But as long as candidates such as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, now campaigning for Congress in Louisiana, feel at home in the GOP, the “party of Lincoln” is going to be viewed with suspicion by minorities. <<<

http://www.lcrga.com/archive/99021401.shtml
Log Cabin Republicans, Inc.

Excerpt:

RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson insisted there is “a cause for optimism” about GOP relations with minorities. He said their “shared legacy,” dating back to the party’s founding on an anti-slavery platform in 1854, is “a foundation on which to build” better relations.

In addition, the party’s next presidential nominee could help it overcome the legacy of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” with a more moderate message such as “compassionate conservatism,” a favorite term of Gov. George W. Bush of Texas.

But as long as candidates such as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, now campaigning for Congress in Louisiana, feel at home in the GOP, the “ party of Lincoln” is going to be viewed with suspicion by minorities.

[DaiHuy]

You said “Who the heck is Keith Richards?”

Lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones

[Calpernia]

[DoorGunner]

“The LCR recruiting docs I saw say, John Moran, Ralph Reed and Jim Nicholson are the ones that opened up the RNC to Main Street and Log Cabin Republicans “

This quote doesn't seem to bear that out:

But Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican Party, said the denunciations of homosexuality could be politically beneficial because "when people are honest about their views most people respect them."

Nicholson said of the comments: "I'm not concerned about what any of those leaders have said. I agree with them. I don't know that we fully understand very much about the sources of homosexuality or if there is a way to alter that. I've talked to some people in both the scientific and theological communities, and they don't seem to be very clear about it."

http://www.lcrga.com/archive/98063002.shtml

Maybe those “recruiting docs” were talking about this:

In line with that thinking, there is small, careful movement within the G.O.P. To coincide with the August national convention of the Log Cabin Republicans, the 10,000 member gay G.O.P. group, Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, made a point of welcoming gays into the party.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989406-4,00.html

Taken together, this doesn't look like much of an association, or affiliation, between LCR and Nicholson.

The medical part of the VA has some serious problems which need to be addressed. If your accusation had any validity, that information might have been of value in that struggle. Baseless slander has a negative value.

DG

[Calpernia]

Bull pucky.

Copy and past my ‘baseless slander’.

[gcruse]

The article is an inflammatory hit piece on the VA. I’m not buying their case.

[Calpernia]

Did you read post 6?

[gcruse]

Good.

[Calpernia]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1870383/posts
Injured Iraq war veterans to sue VA head