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Vet Imprisoned for Seeking Benefits

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Michael Leon
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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 evidences 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 statures 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

Rightwing Health Care


In the administration where rightwing think tanks supply the intellectual essence for such government policy as health care and the Iraq war, the veterans’ benefits bureaucracy also apparently takes its cue from the right.

That is one Sally Satel, a rightwing psychiatrist and resident scholar at the Bush-friendly American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Dr. Satel bemoans the rising veterans’ benefits costs associated with PTSD and what she derides as a culture of trauma and therapy.

In a New York Times op ed piece (March 1, 2006) representative of her work on the topic, Satel notes that the VA is now paying compensation for PTSD at an annual cost of $4.3 billion, a figure expected to rise.

This figure, $4.3 billion, is equal to the cost of our occupying Iraq for approximately 16 days, according to the National Priorities Project.

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Michael Leon is a writer living in Madison, Wisconsin. His writing has appeared nationally in The Progressive, In These Times, and CounterPunch. He can be reached at maleon64@yahoo.com.
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