{"id":57348,"date":"2014-12-26T11:54:46","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T16:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=57348"},"modified":"2014-12-26T11:54:46","modified_gmt":"2014-12-26T16:54:46","slug":"md-vas-clark-sentenced-for-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=57348","title":{"rendered":"MD VA’s Clark sentenced for fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve discussed David Clark a few times over the past few years. He was the official at the Maryland Department of Veterans’ Affairs who was deputy chief for claims there and, as such, submitted claims for himself and his cronies. The Stars & Stripes<\/a> reports that he was sentenced to a year in the pound;<\/p>\n

David Clark, 68, of Hydes, Md., was given a one-year sentence Dec. 5 for obtaining VA compensation for himself and at least 17 others by claiming they had been diagnosed with diabetes following Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam War, the office said in a press release.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

\u201cClark fraudulently obtained VA compensation for himself and at least 17 others, by submitting false documents to the VA purporting to show that the claimants had been diagnosed with diabetes, and in some cases that the claimants had served in Vietnam when they had not,\u201d the U.S. attorney\u2019s office said in the release.<\/p>\n

In May, six other veterans pleaded guilty to receiving over $500,000 as part of the scheme.<\/p>\n

The ruse included letters Clark forged using the names and addresses of real doctors. The letters claimed earlier diagnoses of Type II diabetes, which entitle veterans to lump-sum payments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe letters also stated that the claimants were currently taking insulin, which increased the amount of compensation the VA paid the claimant,\u201d the attorney\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n

He also counterfeited Defense Department forms to make it appear the veterans had served in the Vietnam War and had received numerous awards. Clark falsely claimed he received a Purple Heart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder how many real veterans with real problems in Maryland had to wait in line behind these criminals. I also wonder what kind of system would allow a VA official to approve his own claim. A year in prison is going too easy on this thief. The article claims that he has to pay back the money he stole, but, that’s hardly enough punishment, either. Something really painful needs to happen to him – something administered by Maryland veterans.<\/p>\n

The Baltimore Sun<\/a> said his damages to the system were pretty costly;<\/p>\n

According to a federal indictment made public Wednesday, David Clark secured $1.4 million in fraudulent payouts over 16 years. An Army veteran, Clark rose to deputy chief of claims at the state agency before retiring in 2011.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve discussed David Clark a few times over the past few years. He was the official … MD VA’s Clark sentenced for fraud<\/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":[185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57348","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=57348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}