{"id":105944,"date":"2020-10-06T11:37:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T15:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=105944"},"modified":"2020-10-06T11:41:49","modified_gmt":"2020-10-06T15:41:49","slug":"florida-enacts-tougher-punishments-for-stolen-valor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=105944","title":{"rendered":"Florida Enacts Tougher Punishments for Stolen Valor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/floridalaw.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-105945 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/floridalaw-500x333.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/floridalaw-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/floridalaw-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/floridalaw-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/floridalaw.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The CBS affiliate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wjhg.com\/2020\/10\/02\/tougher-punishments-for-stolen-valor-veteran-scams-among-new-florida-laws\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WJHG reports<\/a> that new laws in Florida have kicked in starting in October 2020.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"headline | font-weight-bold col\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wjhg.com\/2020\/10\/02\/tougher-punishments-for-stolen-valor-veteran-scams-among-new-florida-laws\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tougher punishments for stolen valor, veteran scams among new Florida laws<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"headline | font-weight-bold col\"><em><span class=\"\">By\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"author |\"><a class=\"text-decoration-none\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wjhg.com\/authors\/olivia-michael\/\">Olivia Michael<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<section class=\"header | w-100\">\n<div class=\"article-header article row mb-3\">\n<div class=\"date-time | col-12\"><em><span class=\"date-time published-date-time font-italic d-inline-block\">Published: Oct. 1, 2020 at 9:17 PM EDT<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"date-time | col-12\">PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG) &#8211; As Florida enters the month of October, 24 new laws will take effect. They range from increased penalties of shark finning, to new guidelines for specialty license plates. But one new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2020\/294\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">law<\/a> seeks to protect military veterans from scams.<\/div>\n<div class=\"sharebar | col-12\">\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"btn p-0 linkedin\">\u201cOne out of three people scammed in Florida are veterans. They\u2019re a target for these bad people,\u201d said Florida State Senator Tom Wright, who introduced the \u201cFlorida Veterans Protection Act,\u201d which sets harsher punishments for organizations that scam ten or more veterans.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"btn p-0 linkedin\">\u201cThe attorney general\u2019s office will get involved, will shut them down, and go after them for whatever damages they\u2019ve caused,\u201d said Wright.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"btn p-0 linkedin\">Retired Navy captain John Kittler found himself victim of a scam after Hurricane Michael. These days he spends his time advocating for elderly veterans.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"btn p-0 linkedin\">\u201cWe had an 87-year-old veteran who got swindled out of everything he had and was making a new start,\u201d said Kittler.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"btn p-0 linkedin\">He also supports another new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2020\/205\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">law<\/a> making it a third-degree felony to use military misrepresentations to land jobs or political offices.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"btn p-0 linkedin\">\u201cStolen valor is what we call it, and then when they\u2019re soliciting in uniform and they weren\u2019t a member of the armed forces that\u2019s doubly insulting,\u201d Kittler said this happens more often than you might think. \u201cFor example in another community up north there was a guy parading around as a brigadier general, and he eventually under that state\u2019s law was convicted, but he was passing himself off as a \u2018one-star\u2019 and he\u2019d never been in the service.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n<section class=\"body | w-100\">\n<div class=\"article-body | article w-100\">\n<p>It was lumped into shark finning, but it seems like a step in a good direction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CBS affiliate WJHG reports that new laws in Florida have kicked in starting in October &hellip; <a title=\"Florida Enacts Tougher Punishments for Stolen Valor\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=105944\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Florida Enacts Tougher Punishments for Stolen Valor<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":105945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,408,183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-stolen-valor","category-stolen-valor-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105952,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105944\/revisions\/105952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/105945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}