Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Veterans Court Orders VA Info in Jailed Vet Case
mal contends
Last week, the Court in Keith A. Roberts v. Eric K. Shinseki (05-2425) announced that it:
has determined that additional information from the [DVA] Secretary would be helpful to the Court's resolution of this appeal. The Secretary will describe the procedures, practices and polices used for severing service connection of protected ratings due to fraud in effect at the time of the August 2005 Board decision and the date those procedures, policies and practices were implemented.
Jailed Wisconsin Vet's Case Heard by Top Veterans Court
mal contends
Today the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) is hearing the 13-years-long claim of Keith Roberts, an innocent Vietnam-era, Navy veteran wrongfully jailed through a George W. Bush DOJ prosecution after he was targeted by the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA) for “tenaciously pursuing a claim for benefits” and his whistle-blowing accusations that the VA was fraudulently altering his C-file.
The en banc (full) hearing before CAVC, the national veterans court, will consider issues raised by Roberts including the imperative of the DVA to follow administrative rules and protect veterans' due process, and the mandate of the DVA to avoid a general adversarial posture towards veterans.
Roberts was convicted of wire fraud in 2007 after U.S.
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Tags: Civil Rights, Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC), Gary Holland, Gil Halstad, Harpers Magazine, James W. Ervin, Keith Roberts, Morrison and Foerster, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Robert Walsh, Scott Horton, shreddergate veterans scandal, U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA), veterans, Vietnam-era veterans, Wisconsin Public Radio
Rare Hearing for Jailed Wisconsin Veteran
mal contends
Optimism because Keith Roberts—an innocent Vietnam-era veteran wrongfully jailed through a Bush DOJ prosecution—has been granted a rare en banc hearing before seven members of the national veterans court, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC), for the appeal of his 12-years-long claim.
Anxiety because Roberts, who was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after seeing his friend, Gary Holland, crushed to death by a C-54 aircraft, and his family were relentlessly pursued by the Bush Department of Justice and Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) for Roberts’ “tenaciously pursuing a claim for benefits” and Roberts' whistle-blowing accusations that the VA was fraudulently altering his C-file, records containing documents related to his VA claims.
U.S. Atty Stephen Biskupic's office had convinced a jury that Roberts and a deceased Navy airman (Gary Holland) were not friends.
Shafting Vets Makes the News
mal contends
War tends to produce results dysfunctional to future war-making so veterans and serving military personnel who point to any evidence of this truism risk a hostile government machinery.
Consider what happens when death gives a veteran a problem and the VA can’t make a fraud charge stick when a solider is diagnosed with the resulting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), here’s an alternative tactic: Ruin a soilder’s career while he’s still in the service and take away as many benefits as possible.
See Army General Improperly Kicks Out Iraq War Soldier Diagnosed with PTSD (Veterans for Common Sense).
Pardon Jailed Wisconsin Veteran
mal contends
Ensuring that the world does not enter into a second depression, halting a war or two, saving the environment, formulating an industrial policy on alternative energy, one can go on; all are problems of a massive scale.
But readers of Uppity Wisconsin may notice a comment from a veteran posted this week about another veteran who is serving a four-year sentence in federal prison.
Vets Get New Hearing with Obama
mal contends
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.
Weakening US Criminal Case, VA Turns Down Jailed Wisc Vet’s PTSD Claim
mal contends
by Michael Leon (via mal contends)
Madison, Wisconsin —Vietnam-era Navy veteran Keith Roberts (1968-71) is an honorably discharged Navy airman who feels betrayed by his government, specifically the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Dept of Justice, for its self-conscious and successful efforts to financially ruin and imprison him.
Kentucky Paper Runs Piece on Jailed Wisconsin Veteran
mal contends
The Kentucky News-Enterprise has a piece this week on jailed Wisconsin veteran, Keith Roberts.
Sister takes up brother’s fight for freedom
By JOSHUA COFFMAN
RADCLIFF —Sally Harrod is crunching numbers that stretch beyond her job as an accountant. She oversees a legal fund for her brother in two legal cases regarding benefits he sought as a Navy veteran.
Keith Roberts, 60, is in a Minnesota federal prison, convicted of fraudulently receiving electronic funds from the department of Veterans Affairs. ...
Harrod, her family members and other veterans’ advocates ... fear the VA sought retribution against Roberts for seeking decades of back pay for post-traumatic stress disorder and criticizing the agency’s slow response to approve or deny his medical claims. ...
And, once it is all settled, she hopes her family can help veterans in similar situations.
“It’s unbelievable to all of them,” she said. “If they can do it to my brother, they can do it to anyone at any time.”
Jailed Wisc Vet out of Solitary, Elderly Parents Pray for Visit with Son Before Their Death
mal contends
Today is the innocent and jailed Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts' birthday.
And Roberts (1968-71) is celebrating it back in the general population in a federal prison in Minnesota, as his wife reports that he has been released from solitary confinement, and is working on a supplemental brief, ordered to be filed with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, while Roberts' parents, who are in their 80s and unable to travel to Minnesota, hope to see their son before they die.
Writes Mrs. Roberts in an e-mail:
Jailed Wisconsin Veteran Sent to Solitary Confinement, Seeks Help
mal contends
Roberts was targeted by the US Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2003-05, and became the central figure in an Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic of Wisconsin and top VA officials schemed to convict Roberts’ of fraudulently receiving VA benefits (by wire transfer as the VA requires).
Despite hostility from high quarters of the VA, Roberts may be again granted the benefits for which he is federal prison for receiving.
U.S. Atty Biskupic is the same U.S. Atty who infamously prosecuted an innocent Wisconsin woman in a political prosecution, and several innocent Wisconsin citizens for voter fraud in apparent service to the electoral needs of the national GOP.
Prosecute U.S. Atty Biskupic under Federal Criminal Code?
mal contends
As arguably the most controversial U.S. Atty in Wisconsin history, Biskupic has drawn both praise and angry denunciation for his prosecutions of:
- The proven-innocent Georgia Thompson (see also Biskupic tried to 'squeeze' Georgia Thompson)
- Several overturned “voter fraud” cases (see also Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals)
VA finding: Liberal-biased news worsens PTSD
mal contends
Hanafin's piece in Veterans Today shines a light on the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) that has become almost as politicized as the Dept. of Justice.
Nothing, not even the treatment of returning troops, is safe from the rightwing, pro-war-at-any-costs ideology of this administration.
Hanafin quotes from a VA "fact sheet" on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): “Families should minimize exposure to anxiety-arousing media related to the war. News programs often emphasize fearful content and frightening images to create a 'story.' Watching a lot of TV news programs, for example, can create needless distress. "
Jailed Wis Vet Makes Due Process, Evidence Arguments in Appeal
mal contends
Vietnam-era veteran Keith Roberts who is serving 48 months on trumped-up charges of federal wire fraud has filed his brief before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.Fighting the US DoJ and the VA in Two Courts at Once
mal contends
In Roberts’ case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) (Roberts v. Secretary of the VA (05-2425)), Roberts had just been granted a motion to add to the record an important supplemental brief.
But Roberts is fighting his legal battle not just against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), but also the U.S. Department of Justice in two different courts and two different cases simultaneously on the same factual and legal dispute.
On Friday, June 29, Roberts is filing his criminal brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (U.S. v. Roberts, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Docket 05-CR-118).
US Atty Biskupic and VA Defied US Law to Convict Wisconsin Veteran
mal contends
- 
by Michael Leon, via MAL Contends
Madison, Wisconsin—In this Karl Rove/Dick Cheney age of politics when the governmental machinery is so politicized that Richard Nixon seems a progressive reformist by comparison, it’s not surprising to find the United States Department of Justice ravaging a Vietnam-era veteran diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
But many veterans charge the peculiar case of US v. Roberts is a disgraceful miscarriage of justice even by the contemporary swift-boating standards of the Bush administration.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
In June of 1999, Airman Keith Roberts (1968-71) was granted a disability rating by the US Veterans Administration (VA) after a 12-year, excruciating benefits claim process to which the honorably discharged American veteran from the northern town of Gillett, Wisconsin was subjected.
Roberts had been diagnosed with (PTSD) years after he witnessed a fellow airman killed in a gruesome C-54 aircraft crushing death of fellow Airman Gary Holland in 1969 while on “line duty” at a Naval Air Facility in Naples, Italy, and later in the same year was assaulted by the Navy Shore Patrol and forcefully hospitalized.
Roberts believed that negligence caused Holland’s death and that the Navy then covered it up, blaming the dead rookie Holland who could not defend himself.
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