{"id":93674,"date":"2019-12-22T12:03:25","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T16:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=93674"},"modified":"2019-12-22T12:03:25","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T16:03:25","slug":"air-force-veteran-sentenced-for-fake-ptsd-purple-heart-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=93674","title":{"rendered":"Air Force Veteran Sentenced for Fake PTSD, Purple Heart Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_91292\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-91292\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/purple-heart-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-91292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/purple-heart-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/purple-heart-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/purple-heart-500x333.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/purple-heart.jpg 1255w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-91292\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Purple Heart Close Up<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote><p>22 Dec 2019<\/p>\n<p>The Fayetteville Observer, N.C. | By Rachael Riley  <\/p>\n<p>The claim read like countless Veterans Affairs claims and Purple Heart awards.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014, Air Force Veteran Bryan Paul Winquist, now 39, submitted paperwork to the VA seeking compensation related to what he said was post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of a 2003 improvised explosive device attack in Balad, Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>The claim detailed that Winquist was shot in the left shoulder during a small arms firefight, which lasted between 25 to 45 minutes and caused two casualties and four injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Except there was no firefight, and Winquist was not injured or involved in an attack, VA investigators wrote in legal documents three years after the claim and $37,500 in VA disability compensation later.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Attorney Robert J. Higdon, Jr. announced Winquist&#8217;s sentence for the false claims earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>Winquist, a resident of Cordova, Tennessee, who previously lived in Fayetteville, was sentenced Dec. 12 to one month of intermittent confinement and nine months of house arrest as terms of a three-year period of probation on a charge of theft of government property, Higdon said.<\/p>\n<p>He was also ordered to pay a $31,000 fine and $11,669.06 to the VA.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To commit a fraud upon the VA is to steal from those who have risked their lives to protect this nation,&#8221; Higdon said. &#8220;The limited funds available to the VA are critical to meeting the needs of those who have faithfully served our country, and this office will continue to hold accountable all who obtain veterans benefits through fraud and deception.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Court documents with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina state Winquist submitted the claim to the VA on March 22, 2014.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The worst kind of Valor Thief. Read the rest of the article here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2019\/12\/22\/air-force-veteran-sentenced-fake-ptsd-purple-heart-claims.html\">Military.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>22 Dec 2019 The Fayetteville Observer, N.C. | By Rachael Riley The claim read like countless &hellip; <a title=\"Air Force Veteran Sentenced for Fake PTSD, Purple Heart Claims\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=93674\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Air Force Veteran Sentenced for Fake PTSD, Purple Heart Claims<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,400,391],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force","category-iraq","category-valorvultures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93674","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\/657"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93675,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93674\/revisions\/93675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}