{"id":74171,"date":"2017-08-24T10:14:41","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T14:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=74171"},"modified":"2022-01-23T22:47:58","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T03:47:58","slug":"william-r-jones-pleads-guilty-to-stolen-valor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=74171","title":{"rendered":"William R. Jones pleads guilty to stolen valor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.qconline.com\/news\/crime\/geneseo-man-pleads-guilty-to-stolen-valor-charges\/article_b49e6afb-3841-5623-b8ad-3d3fae315954.html\">QCOnline<\/a> reports William R. Jones, a 67-year-old National Guard veteran from Geneseo, Illinois, pleaded guilty to charges that he lied about his military service and presented false documents to the Department of Veterans&#8217; Affair in order to steal $71,472 in benefits that he hadn&#8217;t earned.<\/p>\n<p>According to the article, Jones claimed that he had suffered disabilities when his AC-130 gunship was shot down over Vietnam and that he had caught the PTSD, but QC Online says that he had retired from the Guard and Reserve without a single combat deployment in his thirty-one career &#8211; he had actually retired as a lieutenant colonel.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>n 2003, after retirement, Mr. Jones sought disability benefits based on claims in statements to the Veterans Administration that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder related to combat service in Vietnam. According to a U.S. Attorney&#8217;s office release, he falsely claimed he had been a Special Operations air crewman on an AC-130 Spectre gunship and was shot down and wounded. Mr. Jones claimed that he had been awarded a Bronze Star Medal with V for Valor and a Purple Heart.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>On Oct. 31, 2013, Mr. Jones caused the American Legion to submit to the VA on his behalf a new claim with supporting documents that included a copy of an article from the Geneseo newspaper. The article was based on false information provided by Mr. Jones about purported combat service, including copies of several false certificates for combat awards and service, and a letter dated 2008 from then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., stating Mr. Jones was a Vietnam veteran.<\/p>\n<p>On July 16, 2013, Mr. Jones submitted a &#8220;Privacy Act Release&#8221; form to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., that contained false information indicating that Mr. Jones had served in combat in Vietnam in 1972, that he had been assigned to Special Operations in Vietnam and that he was shot down in enemy territory but rescued by U.S. Marines three weeks later.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Jones faces 10 years in prison, and a quarter-million dollar fine and restitution to the VA, s well as the loss of his retirement pension from the Reserves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>QCOnline reports William R. Jones, a 67-year-old National Guard veteran from Geneseo, Illinois, pleaded guilty to &hellip; <a title=\"William R. Jones pleads guilty to stolen valor\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=74171\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">William R. Jones pleads guilty to stolen valor<\/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":[30,391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-phony-soldiers","category-valorvultures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74171","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=74171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}