Category: Phony Vet Charities

Someone sends us a link to the story of Jan and Steven Toms from Mahwah, New Jersey who were arrested recently for pretending to be collecting for a soldier-related charity in front of a convenience store.

[Capt. Laurence W. Martin of the Wayne, New Jersey police] said that they presented “false documents” to Stop & Shop to make it appear that they were part of the charity before collecting money from shoppers on Jan. 25. The captain said they had “conducted this fraudulent activity in other surrounding jurisdictions as well.”

They were arrested at police headquarters on Friday after an investigation that began when the charity’s president reported the incident to police. Wayne Detective Dave Collins identified them with the help of “video evidence,” Martin said.

The couple’s attorney, Russell Bickert, said his clients were “absolutely not guilty and these charges are all false.”

The police didn’t mention how much money they had collected, but if it was a nickel, it was too much. According to the article, they were charged with “tampering with public records, wrongful impersonation and theft by deception” and released. New Jersey.

Over a year ago, we first wrote about Brian Michaud and his mom, Andrea, who scammed well-meaning Americans in Wisconsin by selling coupons for local businesses that pledged their goods and services. The proceeds from the coupon sales were supposed to go to veterans, but instead the money was pocketed by Michaud. He even took the vacations that were supposed to be part of the promotions.

Last month, he was fined and punished by the courts for his malfeasance, according to Fox6, the folks who started the investigation;

In September, the court granted a default judgment against Brian Michaud for committing more than 10,000 violations of state consumer protection laws — one for each of the 10,000 books he sold.

The punishment? Fines and forfeitures of more than $40,000.

According to Fox6, Michaud may have moved on to his next scam and they add that he has a long history of criminal behavior including burglary and forgery.

Mary sends us a tip on this woman who goes by the names Adrian Anthony, Adrian Sevilla and Adrian Ford and runs this charity thing “Operation Be My Hero“. It looks like it’s in the early stages, so it’s probably best to nip it in the bud right now. They claim to rescue military working dogs and train them to be service animals for veterans with PTSD.

However, there’s an active warrant out for her arrest in Florida;

Many of the pictures on the website seem to be borrowed from other websites;

She has a couple of felony convictions for possession of a controlled substance in Texas.

The only contact information that I can find for the charity is a phone number. So, you should probably fight the urge to call and contribute.

Kevin Lombard, 64, and Judith Paixao, 61 ran Wounded Marine Careers Foundation, a tax-exempt program to help wounded Marines get jobs in the film industry, but now they’re looking at 20 years each in the federal prison system, according to the Associated Press;

The Department of Veterans Affairs provided $1.2 million in vocational rehabilitation funding for dozens of wounded Marine veterans to take the classes. Authorities say some of the promised equipment and training wasn’t provided, and some of the money was diverted to the couple’s personal use, including fancy meals, a Bermuda vacation and a sailing trip around San Diego Bay.

“These defendants capitalized on the misfortune of wounded Marines in their time of vulnerability and took advantage of the VA’s commitment to serving wounded veterans to defraud the VA and enrich themselves,” U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said in a statement.

They also scammed the Bob Woodruff Foundation out of a hundred grand.

From Fox 5 San Diego;

Paixao and Lombard claimed to have donated more than $200,000 to start the foundation, they ended up taking more than $400,000 from the foundation’s accounts over the course of two years, Duffy said.

Rather than paying the foundation’s creditors, some of whom were board members, Paixao and Lombard transferred funds to their own personal credit cards and bank accounts, Duffy said.

Although some of this money went to repay expenses they had fronted to the foundation, Paixao and Lombard ended up taking more than $100,000 for themselves, Duffy said.

I hope it was worth it for them.

Someone sent us a link to story at WPTV in Palm Beach County, Florida in regards to a veteran who confronted a fellow soliciting near a Publix store there. The fellow was soliciting for a group called Veterans Support Organization. The veteran who confronted him was Andy Rubenstein, a Desert Storm veteran who asked the beggar some basic questions that he couldn’t answer. So, the beggar called his boss. The boss came and cleared out the booth and took off – not the reaction of a legitimate organization.

A quick Google of VSO turns up a warning from Charity Navigator. They were fined in Tennessee for violating the state’s charitable solicitations law. A report last year by a local Dallas station says that they’ve been banned from several states for things like hiring felons and misleading the public. In fact, Florida, where the initial story occurred, has recently fined them.

According to the article in dallas, VSO takes in $7 million/year, but most of it goes to soliciting for more money and paying it’s officers. They have been accused of threatening their beggars for not making daily goals. Sounds like a sweet gig.

Chief Tango sends us a link to the Associated Press story about how the appeals court amended the sentence of a man who identifies himself as “Bobby Thompson”. His actual name is John Donald Cody and he was convicted of swindling folks out of a hundred million bucks in 2013 using his United States Navy Veterans Association charity. We talked about his conviction when it happened.

The judge had originally sentenced him to 28 years in prison and additionally sentenced him to spend every Veterans’ Day in solitary confinement. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the judge had no authority to sentence Cody to solitary confinement, even one day every year.

In a unanimous ruling Thursday, the 8th District Court of Appeals said the trial court had no authority under Ohio sentencing law to impose the solitary-confinement punishment.

The court also reduced Thompson’s sentence by one year, acknowledging Ohio courts didn’t have jurisdiction over some of the identity-fraud charges against him.

The fraud occurred in more than 40 states, according to trial testimony, and Thompson was indicted in Ohio in 2010. He disappeared for nearly two years and was arrested in Portland, Oregon, in 2012.

That’s too bad. My Veterans’ Day would have been a bit brighter had I known the criminal was spending the day contemplating how he had screwed veterans with his greed.

Someone sent us a link on our Facebook page about this Andrew Fortner fellow, a former sergeant in the Army Reserves, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in Missouri for pretending to take donations for the Wounded Warrior Project;

In 2013, Fortner was twice captured on surveillance footage at the St. James, Missouri, Country Mart actively soliciting and receiving donations for the Wounded Warrior Project by using fake literature and trademarked logos.

Representatives from Wounded Warriors confirmed that the charity does not utilize store front fundraising, nor have any donations ever been received by or from Fortner. The Wounded Warrior Project hopes that cases like this raise awareness of these types of scams. At the time of the incidents, Fortner was in the United States Army Reserves serving as a Sergeant.

According to the article, Fortner was also discharged from the Reserves because of this arrest, the spokesman from the Reserves claimed that he was an habitual liar. His attorney had asked for parole, but the judge rejected that request and tossed his ass in prison, four years each of two counts. That’s pretty stiff punishment.