Respecting Veterans More than a Car Sticker

Update: Army Times: Vets file new suit over slow VA claims processing
Tuesday, November 11 is Veterans Day.

But the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA), charged with providing patient care and delivering veterans' benefits, has become a malfunctioning governmental agency.

Worse, the VA has become—through its policy of knocking down large financial rewards for injured veterans—a rogue agency illegally inventing a "review scheme (that) is punitive, discriminatory, confiscatory and contrary to the veterans' benefits system established by Congress," and literally shredding the service records of our veterans.

And even worse, it has jailed an honorably discharged and innocent Wisconsin Navy veteran through the tender hands of U.S. Atty Stephen Biskupic, infamous for the the proven-innocent Georgia Thompson prosecution and pursuit of Wisconsin voters.

Many look to President-elect Obama to make things right.

Roberts was convicted of five counts of wire fraud for receiving VA disability funds stemming from his diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) related to a Navy friend, Gary Holland, being crushed to death during the Vietnam War combat era.

U.S. Atty Biskupic's office had convinced a jury that Roberts and the deceased Navy airman (Holland) did not have a friendship and that Roberts, who was on line duty at a Naval base in Naples, Italy on February 5, 1969 at the time that Holland was crushed to death by a C-54 aircraft, exaggerated his efforts to save Holland, which constituted fraud for which Roberts was convicted in November 2006 by a jury in northern Wisconsin.

Roberts has been serving a four-year sentence since March 2007.

The prosecution and conviction remain at best highly controversial and a three-member panel for the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in July found that, "The record might also have supported a jury determination that Mr. Roberts sincerely believed that his statements were true and that he had no intention to defraud the Government ... (but) (i)t is beyond our authority to disturb (a guilty) finding on appeal (in this case)."

Indeed the two men had parallel careers at several military bases that would make highly unlikely that Holland and Roberts were not at least friendly, though not friendly enough for the VA and the US DoJ that pursued the case over two years.

The hurdle for an appellate court to overturn the judgement of a jury is high, but the criminal case remains under appeal and the benefits case was recently argued at the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC), (Roberts v. Secretary of the VA (05-2425)).


Roberts awaits a decision on both cases at he continues serving a four-year sentence for serving his country.

Roberts has a different set of dog tags now as the embittered and depressed veteran diagnosed with PTSD sits in federal prison in Colorado.

Those wishing to write Roberts can reach him at the address below.

Please consider dropping him a post card and reminding him that life is good, and that fighting for justice is most of the fight:

Keith Roberts, 07827-089
FCI Englewood, East-Upper
FCI 9595
West Quincy Avenue
Littleton, CO 80123


- via mal contends

VA Counsel Unilaterally Declares Law Protecting Vets ‘Obsolete’ in Wisconsin Case

Can an attorney from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) declare a federal regulation obsolete because it interferes with the VA denying benefits to a veteran? No.

Yet this is what attorney Carolyn F. Washington, VA deputy assistant general counsel, proposes in the VA response brief opposing U.S. Navy veteran Airman Keith Roberts (1969-71). [Case is presently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) (docket 05-2425)].

VA Attacks Veteran

The VA will go to any length, spend 1,000s of hours, and whatever money it takes to deny Keith Roberts the PTSD disability benefits that he deserves.

In Roberts’ extraordinary case, this veteran has been forced to fight his legal battles simultaneously against the VA and DoJ in two different courts on the same dispute (including fight the gallant US Atty Biskupic).

As stated in his CAVC brief, Roberts notes: “The (VA) Secretary has caused a criminal prosecution in Federal District Court to be initiated against (Roberts) while he was still before (CAVC) litigating the same facts, transactions and occurrences. The VA regulation for initiating criminal charges against a veteran was not followed, 38 C.F.R. § 14.561."

This VA regulation, Title 38 § 14.561 reads: “Before a submission is made to the U.S, Attorney in cases involving personnel or claims, the … Regional Counsel at the regional office, hospital or center, if the file is in the regional office or other field facility, will first ascertain that necessary administrative or adjudicatory … action has been taken.”

In Roberts’ case, the VA regional counsel made no such determination of adjudicatory action; and in fact, top VA officials plotted to prevent such an analysis from taking place by engineering a prosecution by U.S. Atty Stephen Biskupic in the middle of the VA claim process, using the denial of VA benefits as evidence in the Grand Jury hearing and criminal trial.

Echoing the former attorney general Alberto Gonzales who decided that the Geneva Convention (which like federal regulations have the force of U.S. law on the land) is “obsolete” and “quaint,” the VA’s attorney (a political hack from a bottom-tier law school) argues in response to Roberts’ CAVC brief that the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) personnel and the VA police, are “responsible for notifying the DOJ or the USA (US Atty) of possible criminal matters. … The authority and duty to refer criminal cases is vested in the VA police and the OIG. … it could be argued that, as it relates to criminal prosecutions, section 14.561 is obsolete.”

The VA police authority and role has been to tend to often-disturbed and violent veterans seeking medical and psychological assistance on VA property after coming home from service.

The VA police have never been charged with investigating benefit claims, much less referring claim cases in the middle of VA adjudication to the US Atty’s office.It should be noted that the US Atty’s office never put forth this argument made by the VA that would undoubtedly be shredded to pieces by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit’s panel, slated to hear oral arguments in the Roberts’ criminal trial—plotted and pushed on the US Atty’s office by top VA bureaucrats.

But these top VA bureaucrats did not include the regional counsel, and Roberts never received a written statement and a statement of the evidence supporting the charges, as required by Title 38 Code of Federal Regulations, Section 3.905 (b) Fraud.

Maybe the VA’s attorney will declare that this federal above regulation is also obsolete and quaint.

Legal questions and legal comments can be e-mailed to Robert Walsh at rpwalsh@sbcglobal.net.

Media on Keith Roberts

- Wisconsin Public Radio News (May 10)
- The Lee Rayburn show (June 29)
- Keith Roberts' Atty. on the Lee Rayburn show (June 6)
- WORT Radio - A Public Affair (May 25; begins at one minute, nine seconds)

Update: PTSD Resources

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Feds Ridicule Vet Diagnosed with PTSD

by Michael A. Leon

At the US Dept for Federal Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD website, a veteran is given information on whom to contact for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) problems:

You can contact your local VA Hospital or Veterans Center located in your telephone book, or call the VA Health Benefits Service Center toll free at 1-877-222-VETS. In addition to its medical centers, VA also has many CBOCs (Community Based Outpatient Clinics) around each state so you can look for one in your community.

But as Vietnam-era Air Force veteran Keith Roberts found out, that doesn't mean you should actually file for PTSD-related benefits.In an appellate brief filed with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on July 29, the US Atty's office mocks Roberts for seeking help with his diagnosed mental health and other medical ailments.

Reads the brief filed by Steven Biskupic's office:

A layperson can gather information about PTSD's causes and symptoms from public libraries, the Internet, and the VA's National Center for PTSD ... After Roberts' personality disorder claim failed, he changed course. In February 1994, Roberts notified the VA for the first time that he suffered from PTSD, and that it was connected to his military service. His claim, however, did not say what his in-service stressor was, and he offered no PTSD diagnosis.

So, this veteran did not fill out the complex VA forms properly. But after jumping through hoop after hoop, Roberts was eventually diagnosed with PTSD by several medical professionals and began receiving PTSD-related benefits in 1999.

But he made the mistake of seeking an earlier retroactive date per the advice of his veterans service officer, and called the VA the fraudulent crooks that they are during a period (2004-2005) when the administration was actively seeking to review 72,000 PTSD cases for fraud, per the advice of the American Enterprise Institute, where the administration takes it cues on several public policy areas.

Roberts' was convicted of wire fraud and has been serving a 48-month sentence since March.

His case is under appeal in the Seventh Circuit and his administrative case is under appeal at the D.C.-based Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
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VA Dishonors Our Veterans

- via MAL Contends

Veterans comment on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) handling 0f veterans' claims:


"It is a (Prevalent Practice) for the VA to ignore relevant facts from eye witnesses and experts in their fields at every step in the claims process; there-for segmenting and minimizing the veterans claim. By doing this the original claim becomes confusing for the veteran, and anyone else for that matter, and all of the issues are not addressed. The VA counts on this to a very large degree, hoping the veteran gives up or forgets some of the issues, there-for the claim is denied or at the very least delayed long enough to require refiling. This costs the veteran many dollars due to a newer filing date. But most of all the veteran may lose months, years, or even a lifetime of medical treatment. Not only does he suffer and die but his family must suffer the same frustration financial hardship, and the agony of watching their loved one die."

- Dale Hettmansperger, Vietnam Veteran, 1st Marines. Supporting the Wisconsin Vietnam-era veteran Keith Roberts jailed by US Atty. Steven Biskupic for alleged criminality in Roberts' making a VA claim after being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

"The Bush administration began its assault on veterans by using operatives (who are also psychiatrists) of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) to attack the very diagnosis of (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) itself and malign the veterans afflicted with the disorder as 'malingerers.' As propagandists, public relations managers have been known to further a particular agenda by purchasing the services of academic and professional experts."

- D.E. Ford, M.S.W., Commander Jeff Huber, US Navy (Retired), and I.L. Meagher; from "Blaming the Veteran."
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New Evidence in Jailed Vet Case, Witness Contradicts Prosecution in E-Mail

- via MAL Contends

An e-mail written by a former Navy officer corroborates the account of a Vietnam-era airman who witnessed the death of a colleague killed in a gruesome C-54 aircraft accident in 1969 at a Naval Air Facility in Naples, Italy.

The crushing death of Airman Gary Holland in the wheel well of the C-54 set in motion a chain of events that 36 years later led the US Veterans Administration (VA) and the US Atty for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in 2006 to indict and convict a veteran, Airman Keith Roberts (1968-71), diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), on charges of wire fraud, arguing that Roberts fabricated his role at the death scene and his relationship with Holland, defrauding the VA.

More at UppityWisconsin.
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