{"id":31869,"date":"2012-09-05T08:01:11","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T12:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=31869"},"modified":"2012-09-05T08:58:30","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T12:58:30","slug":"lawyer-scams-vets-gets-busted-pleads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=31869","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer Scams Vets, Gets Busted, Pleads"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Inferno<\/em>, Dante reserves a special place in his vision of hell for those who commit fraud and treachery.\u00a0 He assigns them the worst punishments in hell:\u00a0 the innermost two circles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have to say that I agree with Dante.\u00a0 And in my book, it\u2019s doubly bad when the victim of fraud or treachery is helpless, due to either age or infirmity.\u00a0 So let\u2019s just say I really<\/em> don\u2019t like those who defraud or betray aged or seriously disabled veterans \u2013 particularly when they\u2019ve been appointed to a position of special responsibility and trust.<\/p>\n

Yet as Jonn reminded us a few weeks ago<\/a> such treachery happens with disturbing regularity.\u00a0 People appointed to look after aged or seriously disabled veterans\u2019 finances steal from them all the time.\u00a0 IMO the VA needs to do a better job in selecting those it appoints to look after the financial matters of veterans.<\/p>\n

But sometimes one of these treacherous, thieving bastards gets nailed.\u00a0 And when that happens it brings a smile to my face.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m smiling today.<\/p>\n

It seems an unscrupulous attorney in Houston was preying on veterans.\u00a0 He was acting as fiduciary for some aged and\/or seriously disabled vets; his wife was in on the scam. \u00a0 They were diverting at least some of those vets\u2019 funds for their own use.<\/p>\n

They got caught<\/a>.\u00a0 And yesterday, Joe B. Philips plead guilty in\u00a0 Federal court to conspiracy to make false statements, misappropriation by a fiduciary, and signing a false income tax return.\u00a0 His wife, Dorothy Philips, plead guilty to conspiracy and making a false statement on an income tax return.<\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s facing up to 13 years in prison; Dorothy is facing up to 8 years.\u00a0 And I doubt they\u2019ll get to share a cell.<\/p>\n

The Philips are somewhat aged themselves – in their 70s, to be precise. \u00a0You know what? I don\u2019t care<\/span>.\u00a0 I still hope the judge gives each of them the maximum allowable sentence.<\/p>\n

That would really<\/em> make me smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The Inferno, Dante reserves a special place in his vision of hell for those who … Lawyer Scams Vets, Gets Busted, Pleads<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,155,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal","category-shitbags","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31869","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\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31869\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}