OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: National VA Director Pushed US Atty Biskupic to Indict Critical Veteran

In other words, to an experienced and objective VA civil servant, Roberts’ claim was air tight, but his indignant manner made him a target of bureaucratic retribution.

VA Hits Back

But Special Agent Vasil flew around the country on the taxpayers’ dime asking veterans who did not know Roberts during his service in Italy if 30-some years later the veterans could place Roberts at the scene of Roberts’ friend’s (Holland) death where Roberts and Holland were stationed.

Reportedly, Vasil neglected to show these men a photo of Roberts from his Naval service.

Vasil also questioned veterans (former members of Roberts’ unit) both in person and by phone asking if the veterans knew if Roberts and Holland were friends 30-some years ago. Not surprisingly, the vets could not recall.

Incredibly, the answers received by Vasil regarding the Roberts-Holland friendship and Roberts’ actions at the chaotic death scene 30-plus years in the past formed the foundation of a mail fraud indictment secured by U.S. Atty Biskupic’s office on April 26, 2005 under Title 18 United States Code 1341 (mail fraud).

But the indictment on mail fraud involved no investigation from the Postal Inspector’s office, though the Postal Inspector’s investigations usually precede mail fraud indictments.

Without explanation from Biskupic’s office, the mail fraud indictment was superseded some four months later in September 2005 when Biskupic secured an indictment on wire fraud under Title 18 USC 1343; this time with no input from the FBI or U.S. Treasury Department, as is usual in wire fraud indictments.

The only law enforcement agency used in the Grand Jury testimony securing the indictments was the regional VA Inspector General’s office, not a professional law enforcement agency, but an office that operated vindictively in the person of Special Agent Vasil and his colleagues; and was run at the executive level by soon-to-be-ex-VA Secretary Jim Nicholson, a former Republican National Committee chairman with no veteran advocacy experience, in an administration taking its cues from the veterans’ benefits-hostile American Enterprise Institute scholar, Dr. Sally Satel.

Vasil’s Grand Jury testimony demonstrates Vasil’s weak familiarity with VA adjudication processes:

Grand Jury Question: “Is that part of your training that you have to know the basics of how these (VA) 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.”

Roberts Fights Back

On August 16, 2004, the VA halted the benefits being paid to Roberts based upon Vasil’s investigation. Roberts appealed the decision on September 14, 2004, and was indicted seven months later. [To get an appreciation of the putative nature of the VA machinations, it is worth noting that near instantaneous collection activity was initiated by the U.S. Government against Roberts’ daughters in November 2004, though the Roberts case remained under appeal then, and remains under appeal today.]

Roberts did not take Vasil’s determination to halt Roberts’ VA payments lying down.

Roberts fired off a letter to the Secretary of the VA on November 22, 2004, and made a detailed complaint about what he claimed were the violation of his constitutional due process rights by the VA Inspector General's office.

And an American Legion letter (among others written in October), authored by Phillip Wilkerson (dated Dec. 13, 2004), took issue with the VA’s termination of benefits, and the continued withholding of information and evidence developed in the course of the VA Office of the Inspector General’s (VAOIG) fraud investigation.

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