Retired Green Beret’s widow sues VA for harassment, slander over life insurance payouts
Military Times has this unusual story.
Retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Christian McCoy died while on a contracting assignment in Afghanistan last year, leaving behind $1.2 million in private life insurance to his widow. According to a federal lawsuit filed Sept. 14 in Massachusetts, a Veterans Affairs nurse has been harassing McCoy’s widow, telling her step-children and members of their Special Forces veteran community that Francoise McCoy has been cheating them out of $400,000 each.
Christian McCoy retired from the Army, but hadn’t submitted for VA benefits. Sarah McNary, a transition care management nurse, helped him fill out the paperwork. McNary is one of the people named as defendants in the suit.
After McCoy’s passing, things got…weird.
The lawsuit alleges McNary inserted herself into the McCoy family’s affairs, telling his children ? Abigail, a high school student, and Benjamin, an ROTC cadet ? that they were entitled to a third each of Francoise’s life insurance payout.
“She misled the children to believe that the money was rightfully theirs, setting off a firestorm that tore the family apart,” according to the filing.
Parlatore told Military Times he did not know what motivated McNary to advocate for McCoy’s children in such a manner.
The lawsuit does not provide any further details of the relationship between McNary and Christian McCoy.According to a public Facebook post four days after McCoy’s June 25, 2019, death, McCoy had referred multiple friends to her after getting his own paperwork taken care of.
The children were beneficiaries of separate private policies Parlatore added. McNary’s campaign, according to court documents, led them to push for more, dragging out the settling of Christian McCoy’s estate in probate court.
“Throughout this process, Defendant McNary regularly posted in Facebook groups dedicated to Green Berets and the Special Forces Community about Francoise McCoy and how the children of a fallen Solider were not being provided for, knowing it would cause the Special Forces community to reject Francoise McCoy and paint her as a money hungry widow,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit alleges McNary violated McCoy’s privacy by posting about the life insurance policies online, in addition to libel, slander and infliction of emotional distress against Francoise.
“On December 26, 2019, Defendant McNary posted a picture of herself with Benjamin McCoy, in the home of Plaintiff (Christian) McCoyand Plaintiff Francoise McCoy with the hashtag #dotherightthingfran while referencing Plaintiff Francoise McCoy as a wicked stepmother in the comments,” according to the filing.
McCoy’s widow moved out of the family home, and away from her step children, due to the rising tensions in the family. If the allegations are true (and we are only hearing one side of this), it’s disturbing. Maybe the nurse had developed a friendship with McCoy and felt the need to look out for and help guide the children’s’ lives? If that’s the case, this has little to do with the VA, but they likely have much, much, much deeper pockets than the nurse.
Thanks to Jeff LPH 3 for the link.
Category: Army, Dumbass Bullshit, Guest Link, WTF?
She probably wanted to spend the whole thing on purses nothing for the step kids.
Maybe the “rest of the story” will tell us how big a nosy, none of your business, stay in your lane dumbass this VA Nurse is. Or is the Grieving Widow actually trying to beat the children out of their just due?
Can’t tell, but the important thing for us all to remember is this. Get and keep your affairs in order. Things can change in the blink of an eye. For the family members that are uncomfortable talking of our own mortality, make sure a very trusted friend, family member, or Attorney has specific instructions, written, available for your eventual demise.
From what it states, without knowing the other sides statement, The VA Nurse is trying to break the family apart. If CW4 (Ret) McCoy had multiple insurance policies, each going to different people he clearly had an agenda to keep this very thing from happening. There is a reason you list people as Primary beneficiary… so they get the money. If for some unforeseen reason they die before you (or with you) a secondary beneficiary is listed to ensure they get the money and not the court. It does not mean the secondary beneficiary is entitled to part of the payment if the primary is still alive. If he wanted that he would have listed all of them as such.
My personal opinion is I hope Francoise wins, and it convinces the VA to fire McNary and provide some oversight on what these people are and are not doing! {This is not a case of a former Superhero advising insurance clients on how to file the paperwork properly to get what is rightfully theirs, but a bureaucrat breaking up a family that was grieving which should have come together but now isn’t talking to one another!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi_uv_i_oHsAhVsknIEHUvmBrUQwqsBMAB6BAgKEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_R8GtrKtrZ4&usg=AOvVaw2wMrmWvInsbfVIMeL7MFkG
Exactly. A life insurance policy is a contract, and the proceeds belong to the person specified as beneficiary. No one else. Period. That paper-shuffling “nurse” needs to be fired.
And check this out…dated 17 August 2020…
Something is not right…
“Headstone for Abby’s Dad- Christian McCoy”
https://www.gofundme.com/f/headstone-for-abby039s-dad-christian-mccoy
“Please! Help us get this military veteran and loving father a headstone!”
“It has been over a year, and he still doesn’t have a headstone. His 16 year old daughter, Abby, likes to visit him and has to pile up pinecones. It breaks my heart. She wants a headstone and the day after getting her senior pictures taken, went to the mortuary to choose and design a headstone for her father. If we come together, we can make this happen for her and her loving father, Christian, who as a dedicated Green Beret deserves a headstone. They only install the headstones twice a year, in May and September, so time is of the essence or it will be almost another year before we can get this done.”
Then an Update on 21 August 2020:
“Thank you all for your generous donations! I knew this community would step up. However, I have become aware there are some legal issues which do not allow us to place the headstone at this time. Other avenues are being explored and rest assured, there is enough support to get this done when things get figured out. Thank you again.”
🤔
He retired from the US Army after 27 years of Service.
Isn’t he authorized a Headstone from the VA?
https://www.cem.va.gov/hmm/order_instructions.asp
What am I missing?
Something is not right…
🤔
“Something is not right…” Maybe somebody getting greedy? Maybe somebody wanting a bigger rock than what VA gives? “Legal issues to be resolved…”? ?!?daHell!?! Nearly 6 grand and counting will buy a pretty damn nice rock…engraved rock. Yep, lot more to all of this than we seem to know. I think GoFundMe lets anybody and their neighbor start up a fund cause they know that GFM is getting 20% off the top. Somebody needs to set me up a GoFundMe Account. I’m low on Yuenglings (Pappy, The Stranger, stopped by this weekend with his Engineer Platoon); I could use a lifetime supply of Pepper Ridge Farm Apple Chewy Cookies and Caramel Nut Ice Cream. An F250 power Stroke Crew Cab would be nice. So would a big enough place in the Ozark Mountains for all of the TAH Miscreanted ‘weeds and weedttes to form the New Republic of Freedom Loving Patriots. And room for bacon seeds and ribeye plants.
I would say that nothing surprises me anymore, ninja, but I’m a’feerd that some idiot will take that as a challenge. I know that a lot of us were the last generation to be taught history, cursive writing, and how to drive a stick shift. Were we the last, as a group, to be taught morals too?
The ninja family still pays our bills with handwrtten checks.
We use CASH to buy food, medicine, STUFF…we hardly use our Credit cards anymore (we had our identities stolen in the Big DoD Chinese Hacking…I think alot of us remember this).
We handwrite in cursive Birthday Cards and Christmas Cards. No computer generated address labels…yes, it is time consuming, but one has to MAKE time…
We miss driving a Stick Shift…the “H” Stick Shift…😉😎
We can type without looking at the keyboard.
Not peck.
Type.
We are not Dinosaurs since we use PCs, Smartphones…
Cursive writing is an ART…it is also faster than writing Block Letters..
We Love History and Sadly, History Does Repeat Itself..
Same here, ‘cept for the smart phone. Got an older model Star Trak communicator flipper, heavy duty, that if I dropped it while 40 ft in the air working on the lines, it would bounce and still work. Plus I can pull the bat-tree out and supposedly, it can’t be pinged. Do keep a credit card that I use for big ticket repair items so I don’t have to tote my checkbook. Been with the same bank so long got a very very very low account #. And their Security is so tight, they called me one time when I bought a Honey Baked Ham while I was in FL with the chill’ren.
You’d love to take Sassy for a run thru the footie hills, maybe that long and winding road between Columbus and Manchester. 5 speed, 205 hp supercharged Ion 3 Red Line. Those radials make her track thru curves like she’s on…well…tracks. Black and beautiful, dressed all in leather. Her top end is a little north of 160mph. Don’t ask how I know.
Little Josey is a 6speed Turbocharged nismo, 197hp, that styles, profiles, and can haul enough supplies and provisions to make a comfortable trip halfway across the country and back. With a female companion. And you KNOW how much they can take…just in case. Both get 30 mpg on premium and have served me well. Can’t buy either one anymore and I think that if you even want a stick these days you have to special order it. Sad.
We held on to our flip phones until they died.
Still laughing when someone saw us use our flip phones and commented “OMG, you both STILL use those things?”
😅🤣😂
So now we are in our 2nd or 3rd year of having Smartphones that are already outdated.
Just as our cars that are paid and almost 20 years old, we will keep using them until they don’t work anymore.
Thankfully, our Credit Scores are still ok despite us cutting back on using our credit cards…just as you, we only use them for Big purchases…Thank Goodness we have our cards thru USAA..they have been great about contacting us about illegal purchases that we did not have to pay.
We just can’t figure out why it happened twice…
We miss Stick Shifts…we taught all of our kids how to drive the floor and the the H shift…they LOVE IT.
Glad to see you return safely back to HomeBase yesterday..
hbtd/rtr/gabn
time to give AW1Ed a hard time…😉😎
There was a case in California by the mother of a soldier killed in Afganistan.
Widow got $400K, didn’t buy a headstone, buried him in California, parents lived in another state.
This slag widow sold the plot back to the mother for $15K and then revealed in court his legs were returned six months later to the horror of the mother and minister father.
The judge in proper English, I’ll translate, called her a shameless, greedy, heartless cunt. THE BITCH WAS SHAMED…
It’s on YouTube and the Judge’s name starts with a P.
VA benefits for the widow and dependents, $1.2 million insurance policy for the widow, separate insurance policies for the kids, Social Security benefits(?).
They ain’t hurting for money to get a headstone. Probably already had one ordered to be installed in Sept. Today is 24 Sept. It’s definitely a scam.
Something smells like Nader’s pants.
I smell a rat
It never ceases to amaze me how irrational and selfish people can act after the death of a loved one.
As the rest of you have said, something doesn’t smell right.
As a retiree, he gets a headstone from the VA. As far s the insurance goes, who is named as beneficiary or beneficiaries? This is a really simple matter to figure out.
It’s been 15 years since I took Trusts and Estates but I seem to recall that some states have laws that are written specifically to protect children from a first marriage when someone dies, to prevent the new wife from cutting off the kids of the old wife out of spite (it may sound silly but the “evil stepmother” story trope exists for a reason.)
Nevertheless it’s a matter for the family lawyers to settle and someone who is a VA employee ought not to be inserting herself into the process, especially publicly. That doesn’t help anybody.
I wonder what the CW4’s estate planning documents said? If I had to guess, I doubt his estate planning considered the children from an inheritance standpoint.
If the wife is the beneficiary on the life insurance, it is hers fair and square.
The CW4 could have had the insurance money paid into his estate, and with the necessary provisions in place, some of the life insurance dollars could have funded his trusts for his children. Of course, this assumes McCoy wanted his kids to have money.
Often, children from a first marriage see the second or later spouse inherit their deceased parent’s wealth. After their parent’s final surviving spouse dies, the children watch the wealth go to someone else at the second or later spouse’s death.
A living trust would have avoided this disaster. $2K~5K to draw it up and when you slip off this mortal coil …. no (NO!) probate to cost thousands and take years to settle.
Did he leave a will behind? I see no reference to that but maybe it was just left out.
Something stinks about this, but who is the recipient on that life insurance policy?
Always follow the money. Always.
I wonder if there was an affair….?
Ditto.
Ex:
Sadly, there ARE folks out there who are ignorant about their State Laws AND having a Will as well as Probate issues.
And I’m talking about Folks who brag about gaving Doctorate Degrees and who think they are gonna live forever.
And they Die. At an early age.
Without a Will.
Families start fighting about Burial plans. About who is in charge. About Life Insurance policies if one exists…Have no clue what the word Probate means..
I saw it happen with my one of my Buddies…it was awful..
And you know who my Buddy blamed for the mess and I agreed with his assessment?
The Deceased Who Failed To Plan and Thought They Knew More Than Others.
That Family is no longer a Family. All because of the Deceased.
So Sad.
Don’t you think it is strange that the Chief did not tell his 2nd or 3rd Wife that he had a conversation with that person from the VA?
I’m guessing he had an affair with her. If he was retired Army, doesn’t that give him permanent medical care under Tricare? That has no connection to the VA, unless things have changed. Aren’t retirees supposed to be told about this before they retire?
There is something really stench-soaked in this whole thing.
Chief and his Second Wife would be issued Blue ID cards with choice of TRICARE BASIC or paying preminums for TRICARE PRIME until they transition to Medicare and TRICARE FOR LIFE at 65.
Ex Wife lost DoD privaleges-depending on Court Orders, they may have been eligible for TRICARE..in this case, probably only the Daughter unless Son is in college.
If no college, am sure it stops at 18.
Army Retirement Pay stopped when Chief died. Wife could still use Commissary/PX if not remarried with Dependant ID card.
One does not go to the VA for all of this.
Chief was supposed to do all of this BEFORE he retired.
If wife wants to keep TRICARE PRIME, she has to keep paying preminums. If she remarries, she loses all these benefits, medical, PX, Commissary.
Something is not right.
I used to work Hospice and watched many fights over stupid shit every day.
What I would tell them to stop the screaming worked every time.
“Mom’s not in a coma, she’s blocking you morons out, she’ll be talking to God a lot sooner than you will be and she’ll be telling him everything that happened here”…. “So keep it clean and quiet please, for your own sake”!!!!!
Worked every time !!!
A living trust would have avoided this disaster. $2K~5K to draw it up and when you slip off this mortal coil … no (NO!) probate to cost thousands and take years to settle.
He has 3 children, not 2.
Her name is not mentioned in the Military Times article.
https://www.devanny-condron.com/tributes/CW4RetChristian-McCoy
Something is not ringing right.
As others point out and we all know this: That Life Insurance policies lists Beneficiaries.
If he retired, then I assumed he was getting Army Retirement Pay and one has to list Beneficiaries on that as well…
I don’t understand the meaning of him “applying for VA Benefits”..
Disability?
The ninja family has 2 Army Retirees. Before we retired, we did all of our paperwork to draw retirement pay, sign up for TRICARE PRIME, continued our SGLI insurance (VGLI which we may drop), ensure our Final DD214s were in order, getting our VA disability rating (jumping out of planes more than 5 times is brutal on the body..)
We updated our Wills courtesy of our local JAG Office.
So what is this applying for VA Benefits?
And why hasn’t his family applied for a VA Headstone? So simple…we did it for my Dad and he is buried in a Private Cemetary..
Something Is NOT Right…
🤔
Definitely something is off here
This is just too weird for words.
Why would a VA employee be involved in a private family matter? There is nothing to indicate that the VA is involved in way in this man’s life or death.
Even if the VA employee had legitimate concerns about something which appears to be none of her business, who approved putting personal info out in public? Last I knew, that was still a definite no go.
Posting pics of someone else’s minor children? Uhh. No. Definitely not OK.
Among other weird things. For sure, we could make a few guesses about what is really going on here, but several important details are missing.
We have all known bureaucrats drunk with power. This one seems to have taken it to the next level. Or something.
The VA Nurse:
https://www.centralwesternmass.va.gov/services/returning/index.asp
“Returning Service Members
Welcome Home!”
“VA Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System is committed to providing the high quality healthcare and benefits that our returning troops of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) deserve.”
“To enroll in VA Healthcare”
• Visit your nearest VA Medical Center or Community Based Outpatient clinic.
• Fill out the 10-10EZ application online or in person.
• Be sure to bring a copy of your DD214 (member 4) when you first visit us.
“It is very important to note that you have five years from your discharge date to receive free healthcare for any condition that may be related to your deployment. After the five-year window, a co-payment may apply, based on your income and if the condition is found to be service-connected.”
“How we can help?”
“We have an OEF/OIF/OND Transition and Care Management Program to work with returning service members and veterans. To contact one of the team, dial 413-584-4040 + extension.”
“-Sarah McNary, RMSN, RN, Program Manager: Ext. 2373”
“Throughout this process, Defendant McNary regularly posted in Facebook groups dedicated to Green Berets and the Special Forces Community about Francoise McCoy and how the children of a fallen Solider were not being provided for, knowing it would cause the Special Forces community to reject Francoise McCoy and paint her as a money hungry widow,” the lawsuit alleges.”
I will say it again.
WHY was there a Go Fund Me to collect money for a Headstone because a 16 year old wanted it?
What type of relationship was there with the Stepmom and 3 StepChildren?
What about the Ex-Wife, the Mother of those Children..(I believe 2 are now Legal Adults).
I blame this on the Chief..Gee Whiz, the guy served 27 years and how many of us had it drummed in our heads about Wills, Estate Planning, etc when serving…and yet, there is now this mess?
Who is to say there is not a Law Firm out there that there rubbing there hands together as in Mr. Smithers of the Simpsons?
I think you mean Monty Burns.
rgr769:
You are RIGHT!
I just lost $500 on Jeopardy.
BTW, I am VERY ignorant about Law and Law cases.
A Deceased can be a Plaintiff in a Lawsuit?
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/massachusetts/madce/3:2020cv11693/225663
Give your wealth away before you die, and you will be fairly certain it went where you intended.
Few things screw up relationships worse than the perception of entitlement to other people’s money.
I told my parents, way back, “It’s your money. Spend it. I have no expectation of a dollar of it.”
The Love Of Money Is The Root Of All Evil.