news Veteran fakes using a wheelchair for 20 years, collects $660k in benefits!

[CalVet]

Hey everyone I have a story to share with all of you. So there's this guy named Christopher Stultz from New Hampshire who's a veteran. He recently admitted to carrying out a fraud scheme. Can you imagine? For 20 years he pretended to be wheelchair bound all to receive more than $660,000 in benefits for a fake injury.

Isn't it mind boggling? Whats more insane is how he got caught. It turns out that someone saw him walking normally after visiting the Veteran’s Affairs office.

Stultz, who is now 49 years old recently pleaded guilty to providing information to the Department of Veterans Affairs way back in 2003. He falsely claimed that he couldn't use his feet anymore after leaving the service and as a result of this deception he received a disability rating of 100%.

And to imagine he might serve less than 5 years in prison for this while veterans wait 5 years to receive their initial decisions!

It's quite a tale don't you think? What are your thoughts, on this? Lets hear them!

Military veteran faked using wheelchair for 20 years to collect $660K in benefits

Several people who knew Stultz as far back as the early 2000s also shared with investigators that they had never known him to need a wheelchair or any other walking assistance.

nypost.com

 

[greg]

thats nuts! i can't believe that someone... i won't call him a vet after that... could get away with that level of fraud for so long.

you're telling me that the VA has no oversight and before after and during the visits to the clinics, not one vet, clerk, nurse or doctor took notice of his condition to throw it on over to an investigative department and it took 20 years to get it on tape as evidence?

how in the world is an elementary student teacher going to pay that amount back too? surely he has equity in his home, but I don't think our justice system is hard enough to make him pay it back or a large sum of what's owed back because of his position as a state eductor.

the story also mentions another veteran that got over $300k in benefits for submitting a false Purple Heart application for a TBI... there has to be a better system in place now for awards and citations to where they can easily be checked! a rater should've been able to type up his social and find 0 results of a Purple Heart award and told him to take it up with his branch's awards unit, then tell him to kick rocks. if he had a Purple Heart he could've easily proven it by going to Congress and getting them to get someone from the awards unit to verify it, enter it, and reship the citation and award. then, he could've just filed a clear and unmistakable error claim and got the award if he truly had one.

i know these people are the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of maybe even the 1% of 1% as there are millions of veterans, but they sure do make everyone look bad collecting for things they shouldn't.

-SSG G

 

[troppy]

These stories don't come up often because they're so rare overlooking the entire community.

Fraud in this case is awful, but unfortunately, it's not surprising. Hopefully, they catch everyone eventually and they have to repay it in full somehow, like even with community service hours if need be.

It took me too long to reach where I am now for someone to easily lie and get theirs, let alone have them for decades.