Roberts received a “Special Enlisted Personnel Performance Evaluation” (the military equivalent of a pat on the back for the then-young airman) two days after the death of Airman Holland.
But Roberts became the central figure in what is a cautionary, Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Atty. Biskupic’s and the VA’s scheming resulted in Roberts being tried and convicted of receiving disability benefits from the VA (by wire transfer as the VA requires for all payments).
When the veterans’ court restores Roberts VA disability benefits, which never should have been taken from him, he will not be eligible to receive them, as he is now serving 48 months in federal prison for receiving the very same benefits
The Veterans Court can restore the benefits, but lacks authority to order him released from prison. That is the argument Roberts has been making for many months: That criminal prosecution for an allegation of VA benefits fraud cannot commence until the final VA determination has been made.
One observer said, “Alice-in-Wonderland? Try Kafkaesque.”
Roberts Hits VA
Anger, panic, and frustration with the VA drove Keith Roberts to phone the VA Inspector General’s office at Hines, Illinois, in November 2003 at which time Roberts spoke with Special Agent Raymond Vasil.
Roberts accused the VA of “fraud” in altering a transcript at a local hearing in the VA Regional Office in Milwaukee as the VA was in the process of determining the date from which his retroactive disability pay was to become effective, among other benefit issues.
Adjustments and frequent remanding (sending back for reconsideration) of cases are common VA practice. It’s not hyperbole to say that many veterans have died awaiting appeal of their cases.
[From AlterNet: The Army Times reports a backlog of some 600,000 veterans' benefits claims on appeal. On average, it takes the VA 177 days to process an original claim and 657 days to process an appeal. If psychically injured veterans die with their case under appeal, the case dies with them.]
The VA’s Vasil (who has no professional law enforcement and no VA benefit adjudication experience) disingenuously told Roberts in November 2003 that he would look into the fraud accusation against the VA.
But Vasil appears to have had no intention of investigating the VA, but rather investigated Roberts beginning in Dec. 2003 as Roberts continued making waves with the VA Regional Office staff in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his accusations.
Roberts had been a thorn in the side of the Milwaukee Regional VA’s office as well as the Illinois-based regional VA Inspector General’s office for insisting on his rights as a veteran to his benefits in less-than-diplomatic tones and language.
“Keith Roberts was granted a 100% compensation rate for PTSD from his date of claim. To grant PTSD, we need both a.) a current diagnosis and b.) a verified in-service stressor. We found not only a stressor, but an in-service diagnosis for Airman Roberts,” said a source at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee who e-mailed the Lee Rayburn radio show in Madison after a broadcast of a show on Roberts. “[T]he only reason Airman Roberts was ever prosecuted was because he was a ‘belligerent ass’ who kept insisting that he get paid back to discharge. He was demanding an appeal in Washington. I'd have to say that you guys are TOTALLY (uppercase in the original) right about Roberts' conviction being bullshit. ...”
As late as this spring, the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee security desk had a picture of Roberts with instructions to call the VA police if Roberts were to visit the Center, according to the anonymous VA Medical Center source who contacted the Lee Rayburn radio show in Madison.
