{"id":17816,"date":"2010-03-06T06:37:58","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T11:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=17816"},"modified":"2010-03-06T06:37:58","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T11:37:58","slug":"floridas-new-stolen-valor-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=17816","title":{"rendered":"Florida’s new stolen valor law"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know about the Stolen Valor Act that makes wearing medals a serious offense and makes it a real crime to wear or claim military medals when a fraud didn’t earn them. Well, Florida lawmakers want to take it a step further and make it a felony to even claim to be a veteran when it’s not true<\/a>;<\/p>\n

On Friday morning, Neal Quittell was dressed in fatigues and wearing a hat that read “Veterans Support Organization” as he collected money on Northeast 17th Street and Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n

“I’m not a veteran and I know I’m not,” he said. “I can’t sit out here and lie. We’re a nonprofit organization. \u2026 Our money goes out to the veterans and the VAs.”<\/p>\n

Jacobs’ district aide, Franco Ripple \u2014 who was also credited with calling attention to the issue \u2014 called the Lauderhill-based Veterans Support Organization “one of the largest perpetrators throughout the eastern U.S. and Florida, known as the \u2018granddaddy’ of the offending organizations.”<\/p>\n

Justin Wells, South Florida chief operating officer for the group, said his organization gives 65 percent of the money it raises to the veterans, and puts up more than 50 veterans in its transitional housing.<\/p>\n

Solicitors who are not veterans wear uniforms representing veterans, he said.<\/p>\n

“You don’t have to be a veteran to help a veteran,” Wells said. “We agree that vet groups should be more watched and that they should be held to a higher standard.”<\/p>\n

Street impostors file for corporate status, which requires them to give veterans a portion of their donations, Gelber said, but the public should donate to one of the groups sanctioned by Congress so that veterans get the money intended for them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The organization says 65% of the collected money goes to veterans, but Florida lawmakers say only 15% goes to veterans. Even at 65%, it’s a poor rate when 100% of the symbolism involved in taking the collections is related to veterans. Putting someone who never spent a day in the military on the corner in a uniform to collect money is fraud, pure and simple.<\/p>\n

Thanks to 1stCavRVN11B for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all know about the Stolen Valor Act that makes wearing medals a serious offense and … Florida’s new stolen valor law<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phony-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17816","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}