{"id":170753,"date":"2025-06-19T12:55:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T16:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=170753"},"modified":"2025-06-19T12:55:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T16:55:14","slug":"pj-herbert-sentenced-in-stolen-valor-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=170753","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;PJ&#8221; Herbert Sentenced in Stolen Valor Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_170755\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-170755\" style=\"width: 479px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-170755\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/50709892-479x333.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"479\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/50709892-479x333.jpg 479w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/50709892-300x209.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/50709892.jpg 719w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-170755\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Paul &#8220;PJ&#8221; Herbert of Shelburne Falls, veteran of tours in Iraq and Somalia, spoke during Veterans Day Services at Veterans Mall in Greenfield Monday.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>NOTE: TAH \/ VG carried several articles about this guy. This is the sentencing phase of the story.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>(theme = arrested) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=146726\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=146726<\/a><\/li>\n<li>(theme = apologizes) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=128923\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=128923<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Meet Paul &#8220;PJ&#8221; Herbert, a 54-year-old former Marine who apparently confused his military service with a Netflix action movie, claiming to be the sole survivor of an IED attack with British Royal Marines that never happened\u2014because why let reality ruin a good story? This creative storytelling genius managed to pocket nearly $300,000 in veterans&#8217; benefits over 13 years while sporting 14 fraudulent military medals like some sort of delusional dress-up game, including a fake Purple Heart application that he had the audacity to submit through his congressman&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>When finally caught, Herbert showed up to court with his service dog (whose vet bills the VA was also paying for) and delivered what the judge generously described as sounding &#8220;like an acceptance speech&#8221; rather than a genuine apology. Now he&#8217;s facing 24 months of supervised release with a year of home confinement, $299,733 in restitution, and the ultimate punishment for any attention-seeking fabricator: his wife divorced him, his kids won&#8217;t talk to him, and he&#8217;s missed family milestones\u2014proving that sometimes the real casualties of stolen valor are the relationships you destroy along the way.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"articlebigheadline\" role=\"heading\"><strong>Marine vet gets 24 months of supervised release in stolen valor case, must pay nearly $300K in restitution<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"articlebigheadline\" role=\"heading\"><em>By DOMENIC POLI | Staff Writer, Greenfield Recorder | 06-17-2025<\/em><\/p>\n<p>SPRINGFIELD \u2014 A U.S. Marine Corps veteran was sentenced on Tuesday to 24 months of supervised release for stealing benefit payments from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and submitting a false Purple Heart application through his congressional representative.<\/p>\n<p>Paul John \u201cPJ\u201d Herbert, 54, appeared in U.S. District Court in Springfield three months after pleading guilty to one count of making false statements. The first 12 months of his supervised release will consist of home confinement, with exceptions for medical, mental health, therapeutic and veterinary appointments as approved by the Probation Department. Herbert was also ordered to pay $299,733 in restitution, which will take the form of the VA withholding $900 per month from Herbert\u2019s monthly disability compensation benefit.<\/p>\n<p>The Recorder published a report in August 2022 in which Herbert admitted to embellishing his military service and receiving medals and money he had not earned. Herbert was accused of stealing more than $344,000 in veterans disability benefits between Jan. 1, 2010 and March 11, 2023. He was arrested on Sept. 1, 2023. It has since been discovered that Herbert had legitimately earned approximately $44,000 of the money he had received.<\/p>\n<p>In court on Tuesday, Herbert read a prepared statement in which he spoke about his service in Iraq and Somalia, but apologized for lying about certain events and accomplishments. The act of lying about military service is known as stolen valor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI violated the Marine Corps values,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Herbert, who appeared in court with his English Labrador retriever service dog, thanked his Veterans Affairs physicians and caretakers as well as his family, including his Vietnam War veteran uncle who died in April. He also apologized to U.S. Rep. Richard Neal for wasting his office\u2019s time and to Purple Heart recipients, saying he hopes they do not feel their sacrifices have been belittled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Had Herbert gone to prison, besides prison issued clothes he would have had the nickname &#8220;PJ&#8221; taken away and issued the nickname &#8220;Trap Door.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NOTE: TAH \/ VG carried several articles about this guy. This is the sentencing phase of &hellip; <a title=\"&#8220;PJ&#8221; Herbert Sentenced in Stolen Valor Case\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=170753\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;PJ&#8221; Herbert Sentenced in Stolen Valor Case<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":170754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,461,391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marinecorpsposer","category-purple-heart","category-valorvultures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170753","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=170753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/170754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}