Minnesota Man Accused of Stolen Valor, Collecting $100K in Veteran Benefits
A Minnesota man is being accused of Stolen Valor as well as fraudulently taking $100K in veteran benefits from the government over a period of years.
If the above Purple Heart citation is the one he used, I can’t for the life of me understand why he spelled his own first name incorrectly – plausible deniability, perhaps?
Dilworth man accused of Stolen Valor; collected over $100k in Veteran’s benefits
Joe Leier | Apr 3, 2024BEMIDJI, Minn. (KFGO) – A Dilworth man is accused of Stolen Valor in Federal Court.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Bemidji says Mikhail Wicker, 37, falsely claimed to be a decorated marine veteran in order to collect benefits from the government from 2015 to 2020.
Court documents say Wicker claimed to have served in Iraq and said he was a prisoner of war in 2005. He also claimed to have been injured by an IED while deployed to Iraq.
Wicker forged government documents, including one that claimed he had been discharged from the marines, and a document saying he had received a Purple Heart.
Wicker was able to get over $100,000 in benefits using his fake documents.
He is facing charges including theft of government funding and fraud.
Other sources:
- Minnesota Man Accused of Stolen Valor During Operation Iraqi Freedom
- Minnesota man accused of stolen valor, stealing $100K+ in benefits
- Dilworth man accused in ‘stolen valor’ scheme that netted more than 100,00 in veteran benefits (subscription)
Category: Purple Heart, Stolen Valor
It kills me the VA can’t do a basic check of an applicant to see if they are full of shit.
2banana,
Beat me to it. Exactly. Bingo.
I forgot about this loser.
Grand Marshal at the All-Points Logistics Veterans Day Parade.
I can’t help but wonder how so many SV types get VA recognition. Giving the benefit of a doubt, I think that maybe there are some sympathetic sorts who are just too trusting. Phony applies for benefits and has semi-believable documentation to back up a sob story = “Thanks for your service, here’s a check and some free stuff”.
I’d venture to guess that the majority of us downplay our service, or at least aren’t all high and mighty about things we once did. It’s much easier for some office worker or bureaucrat to be dismissive of Sgt High-Speed, who got injured in Iraq but feels like he failed his team when he got medically discharged, and applies for legitimate benefits without fanfare than it is for that same VA employee to look Cpl Wicker, alleged POW and PH recipient, in the eyes and tell him he’s full of BS.
Of course, we all know how easy it is to vet someone’s service, but I guess that’s just too much work for those well-paid VA types.
Waiting for the commentary to flow in on this one.
Dat’s a good one.
POW’s…
Man-o-man those phonies luuuuuvvvv claiming to be a POW.
Going down the “TAH Starter POSer Slut Kit”…
Puh-lease! Come back when you’re ready to play.
He is not a true Valor Thief until the woman he moved in with and is financially supporting him comes here to tell us that we don’t understand, because she is in bed with him when he wakes up screaming having flashbacks of his time in captivity. Of course, he doesn’t tell her about his cellmate in the Minnesota prison system was waking him up for a “midnight special”.
Don’t forget the sticky buns and tennis ballz.
All-Points Logistics employment – check.
Another VA failure to spot a(nother) PHONY POW?
WTF with wrong with the VA gatekeepers
who can’t find something so easily found?
The POW Network should be easy to find.
So should various lists of POWs.
And deploying the Fu of Google,
not for proof of Purple Heart, but proof of PHONYING.
I know, I know, it’s nothing new.
But I had my own keyboard fingers in outing 2 over the past few years,
1 just months ago, the Tennessee VA parade “Grand Marshal”.
See the comment threads at this 11/17/23 Weekend Open Thread.
https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=149819
It’s not too late for those wounds. Just saying.
Wicker? You guys are making this too easy. Any word on the status of his mailbox door?
Last I heard he couldn’t afford a replacement, and his Jag hasn’t been serviced in years.
Phil Monkress is reaching out to him as we speak to see if he would be interested in doing some special work off books.
Reaching out or reaching around?
Out, down and around.
The Phildo Trifecta.
I imagine he is already at the corporate HQ for All-Points Logistics as we speak.
A precondition for being onboarded at All Points Logistics is to remove your mailbox door.
Elaine Ricci was unavailable for comment.
So just WTF is up with these POSer assclowns always wanting to falsely claim POW status? Why?
As I’ve said before here at TAH, I’m acquainted with a Vietnam War POW (Naval Aviator; “Hanoi Hilton” survivor), and I also know several of the POWs from Operation DESERT STORM.
Not one of them is proud of having been a POW, nor do any of them ever go around bragging about their former POW status. Being a POW was one of the most absolutely horrible experiences in each of their respective lives, and they all wish that they had never been forced to endure those days in captivity. The former POWs that I know don’t even like to talk about their experiences in private conversation, let alone run their mouths about them incessantly in public as these POSer assclowns do.
The former POWs that I know are unanimous in saying that the day that they were taken prisoner was the worst day of their lives.
In contrast, these POSer assclowns want to portray being captured and held as a POW as some kind of achievement that should be envied. I am never going to understand this.
Damn all of these POSer shitheads to hell. All of them.
Ditto, here. I never met anyone in my Viet of the Nam service in front line combat infantry units that thought it would be cool to be a POW.
My biggest lesson from SERE was never be captured. The school OinC who debriefed the class was a Hanoi Hilton alumn.
My reserve unit did a weekend POW camp exercise for the 12th SFG(A) one winter. We tried to make our POW’s as uncomfortable as possible. With 4 inches of snow on the ground that made it easy to do. I played the quite unpleasant camp commander.
Did they let you keep the monocle?
Speaking about war survivors, I was in the dentist’s office a couple of weeks ago and the lady sitting opposite of me sees my USS Okinawa LPH 3 cap and we start talking. Her father was a WW2 Malmedy survivor who laid in the snow with a body on top of him. He had to have plastic surgery on one side of his face from severe frostbite, and she also told me that dad was never right after he got home.
And in 1972, SS Peiper living in France burned to death in his house.
Hardcore.
I knew two former POW’s growing up, one from WWII, the other from Korea. Both very good men, but outside of very limited discussions with Boy Scout groups or such, they didn’t talk about it. Everyone in the county knew, but it wasn’t treated as a big deal. The Korea POW was a Marine, and his yard looked like a stereotypical USMC base, driveway and walkways lined with perfectly placed rocks, trash cans on solidly built, elevated stands, and a flag pole dead center, with the US and USMC flags flying every day.
My grandfather was a WWII POW.
He never demurred when the subject came up, but he never broached it, himself. When he did speak of it, it was only to relate self-deprecating stories of life in the camp. Like the time he was doing KP duty and smuggled extra potatoes to his buddies in the water pitcher – he tripped and dropped the pitcher, earning a buttstroke from the guard for his troubles; he wasn’t complaining about the buttstroke, his buddies made fun of him for not realizing he needed to bribe the guards to look the other way with his care-package cigarettes.
The only time he ever opened up about the real horrors he dealt with was the first time I came back from Iraq and related to him, fighting back tears, seeing my commander turn coward and abandon a wounded man on the battlefield. I wasn’t the only one to cry that day and, while it’s a moment only he and I share and I will always cherish that, I will also always regret it. I brought one of my only living heroes to tears over something with which he had otherwise come to terms.
Anyone who would lie about POW status… don’t do it near me because I cannot predict my reaction. Good chance it will be violent.
The lowest form of life.
I blame “Hogan’s Heroes,” even though that show was awesome.
I’ve got to say that spelling errors on military docs is definitely not proof of fakery!
My first name is very rare. Even though it only has four letters, I long ago learned to check others’ spelling of it immediately since I once flew home from a course with a certificate proclaiming “Rpior Service” was the honor grad. More memos have not been signed for misspelling my name than any other reason!! In reviewing an award, I once found Calvary, Cavarly, and Cavlary in it but nary a Cavalry. (It came from one of the rifle companies so 50/50 it was ignorance or dislike of CAV…) Bottom line, misspellings prove nothing. Indeed, I’d say probably 90 percent of stuff I review for approval has misspellings in it. It’s whether others bother to review the results…. Lazy people are who let this slide by not checking. We’re here to kill stuff, not for our proficiency in English.
I have many orders and other docs with my last name misspelled. My last name is commonly spelled with one less letter than the correct spelling. When looking at my 201 file, clerks thought that additional letter was a typo and omitted it from whatever they typing.
The only trophy Charlie Brown ever won spelled his name Charlie Braun. It happens to the best.
Should be pretty easy to spot a faked certificate, especially when the authenticating signature is that of Bob Neener. Anyway, the whiz Wheel®™ spins:
Mikhail Robin Wicker (FUBAR) 38 x 7 = 266
Based on his age in the article and the date of his (alleged) combat injury, he would be 18 at the time that he “earned” that Purple Heart. You can enlist at age 17, with Parental Consent, but enlisting in Delayed Entry, presumably graduating High School, completing Basic Training, completing MOS school, leave while PCSing, checking into a new command and deploying to a combat zone prior to turn 19 would be pretty rare occurrence. Not saying that it couldn’t happen, but that is a pretty tight calendar to check all of those boxes.
“Wicker received more than $100,000 in veterans’ benefits despite never serving in the military, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.” A liar and a thief, standing on the bodies and in the blood of True Warriors, is what the POS Mikhail Wicker is. Nothing is more despicable than what you did, Mikhail Wicker. I hope that the Boys in Cell Block D have many an opportunity to dip their “wick” while you’re pulling the “train” at the Federal PITA Pen.
Can’t believe that I am, again, the FIRST (ht2 CW (WOT) & KoB (HOT)) to call for a Deployment of The Vaunted TAH As(s)teroid of Insults on the lying, valor thief, Mikhail Wicker.
Can I get a SECOND and an AYE?
Segundo!
AYE!
My most humble apologies that I missed this one. I will work on it quickly and give the zombied thread it’s due.
I have many many days of catching up. I’ve been hanging out on the front end of TAH.
Hack Stone is willing to bet a Red Hat Software license key that he was a prisoner, but not in Iraq, but in the Land of 10,000 County Jails.
Lake Gotyrgoober Bar and Jail.
Had to go thru the provided articles to find the takeaway quote:
How the shit does crap like this keep Fing happening?
Drop The Vaunted TAH everyf**ckthing of Insults!
He can always reimagined himself and start referring to himself as Palmer. That worked out great for some loser in Bethesda Maryland.
That’s Paul-mer (of the ballsack).
Always remember, never forget.
So how do these fakers ever get approved for these benefits? The first question is always “Where are your service medical records? And the second question is “Are your injuries documented in your records?” So without the official records (or good copies), how do they get anything as service connected? OR are some VA workers just that stupid? Oh wait, now I see…..
All-Points Logistics has been giving them benefits for years….
I wonder if Phil Monkress has hired Mikhail Wicker yet?
Phildo cannot let this type of talent fall by the wayside.
All-Points Logistics forever!
He’s definitely All Points Logistics material. A history of bankruptcies, restraining orders, and DUI’s are known as resume enhancers at All Points Logistics. Phil Monkress likes to keep this caliber of people on staff when he needs someone to be cajoled into a career self-murder mission.
My Apologies to the group but I’m playing catch up on the threads.
It’s never too late to drop the bomb on someone like Mikhail
Wicker (no relation to Psul of the Ballsack) BUT deserving, nonetheless.
Mikhail is the shittiest shitter of the dog
feces of anal warts of the pustules of AIDS an infection on the human species
and for that, you have earned the coveted, As(s)teroid of Insults®™.
Because of previous space issues and it taking up like 10 pages of ass whuppin’, it’s now linkied
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sjY9PVg9aDMHFOz68OuSX2Mw5WY7hyaXG8YGSC8-LU4/edit?usp=sharing