{"id":80469,"date":"2018-07-10T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T13:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=80469"},"modified":"2018-07-10T08:48:09","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T12:48:09","slug":"richard-e-kohl-pleads-guilty-to-defrauding-the-va","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=80469","title":{"rendered":"Richard E. Kohl, valor thief, pleads guilty to defrauding the VA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HMC Ret sends us a link to the news that 83-year-old Richard E. Kohl pleaded guilty in Pensacola, Florida to defrauding the Department of Veterans&#8217; Affairs of  $219,719.39. From the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-ndfl\/pr\/pensacola-man-pleads-guilty-stealing-department-veterans-affairs\">Department of Justice<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Documents introduced at the time of the guilty plea reflect that, at some point prior to July 3, 1996, Kohl created and signed a fictitious Form DD-214 that falsely reported that he served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War and was discharged on December 20, 1961.  Kohl never served in any branch of the United States military.  Kohl used the false Form DD-214 as proof of his military service to obtain veterans\u2019 benefits he was not entitled to receive.  Between February 3, 2005, and February 9, 2018, Kohl received benefit payments and services totaling approximately $219,719.39 from the VA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy defrauding the federal government for personal gain, Kohl stole resources needed to help real veterans,\u201d said U.S. Attorney Canova.  \u201cThese benefits are meant for the brave men and women who have served our country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Monty Stokes, Special Agent in Charge, VA Office of Inspector General said, \u201cThe VA benefits fraudulently received by Mr. Kohl were intended to provide financial and health care support for veterans who honorably served in the armed forces of the United States.  This guilty plea is the result of the successful investigative and prosecutive efforts of the VA OIG and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.  These continued efforts safeguard the integrity of VA programs, and ensure that VA benefits are provided only to those who have earned them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know what is going on at the VA, but it seems to me that there are too many of these folks slipping through. This old coot had no military service, and that fact should have been available to the gatekeepers at the VA from the git. Now they want to imprison the guy for ten years and what good is that going to do anyone? <\/p>\n<p>That $200k is gone. He&#8217;ll never live long enough to pay that back. Veterans are the ultimate victims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HMC Ret sends us a link to the news that 83-year-old Richard E. Kohl pleaded guilty &hellip; <a title=\"Richard E. Kohl, valor thief, pleads guilty to defrauding the VA\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=80469\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Richard E. Kohl, valor thief, pleads guilty to defrauding the VA<\/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":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80469","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=80469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}