{"id":78291,"date":"2018-03-16T11:04:38","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T15:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=78291"},"modified":"2018-03-16T11:05:17","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T15:05:17","slug":"wounded-warrior-fund-scammers-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=78291","title":{"rendered":"Wounded Warrior Fund scammers arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?attachment_id=78292\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-78292\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/James-Linville-246x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"246\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-78292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/James-Linville-246x300.jpg 246w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/James-Linville-273x333.jpg 273w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/James-Linville.jpg 303w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 246px) 100vw, 246px\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Bert sends us a link to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/03\/16\/politics\/wounded-warrior-arrests\/index.html\">CNN<\/a> which reports that four people were arrested in New Albany, Indiana for scamming well-meaning folks with their phony charity named the Wounded Warrior Fund (not the better-known Wounded Warrior Project) out of over $150,000. The four are Joanie Watson, Thomas Johnson and Amy Lou Bennett led by 44-year-old James Linville;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p> Linville worked with three associates to defraud more than 1,000 victims and collect more than $150,000 in traceable donations over six years, according to investigators. The indictment alleges they told donors 100% of their contributions would go to veterans and their families. Investigators say no money went toward veterans.<\/p>\n<p>The Justice Department publicly announced the charges Friday morning. &#8220;The acts of these fraudsters have eroded the trust and good will of those who want to contribute to legitimate fundraising organizations, including those that support our veterans,&#8221; US Attorney Josh Minkler said in a statement on Friday. &#8220;Our American veterans have dutifully served this country through many wars and deserve better than to be deprived of donations from giving donors,&#8221; Minkler said.<\/p>\n<p>The four are suspected of using aliases to make cold calls and flyers and to seek business donations to help veterans and active-duty service members and their families in need &#8212; payable in cash, checks, gift cards or in-kind donations, according to law enforcement. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Secret Service told CNN that none of the four had ever served in the military, even though Linville made cold calls identifying himself as &#8220;Sergeant Bob Davis&#8221;. They each face 20 years for 227 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>They are also accused of calling local businesses to have food, hotels and services &#8220;comped&#8221; for veterans. &#8220;The free hotel rooms were often used for members of the conspiracy and others to engage in drug activity,&#8221; a law enforcement source with knowledge of the case tells CNN.<\/p>\n<p>Those non-cash donations added up, said Clark County Sheriff Jamey Noel. &#8220;This organization &#8212; this fake organization &#8212; was asking people for food donations, for hotel rooms for veterans, for donations from different businesses that would be raffled or organized off for this, what people thought was a legitimate organization,&#8221; he said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Linville, who has a criminal history that includes drugs, check fraud and domestic battery, left threatening messages for investigators;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p> In July 2017, Linville told the detective, &#8220;You&#8217;ve got some problems coming, bud&#8230;you&#8217;ve got major problems&#8230;put me in jail, I dare you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Linville did not stop. &#8220;I&#8217;ll make a mockery of your court. I&#8217;m a sovereign citizen, mother***er. American born sovereign citizen.<\/p>\n<p>Your f*****g state laws don&#8217;t apply to me in any way,&#8221; Linville told the detective on his recorded voicemail. &#8220;I will make a mockery of your f*****g court. And I&#8217;ll destroy the sheriff&#8217;s department.&#8221; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I wonder how he&#8217;s getting along with LEOs today. <\/p>\n<p>Dumbass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bert sends us a link to CNN which reports that four people were arrested in New &hellip; <a title=\"Wounded Warrior Fund scammers arrested\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=78291\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Wounded Warrior Fund scammers arrested<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[211],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phony-vet-charities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78291","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=78291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}