Phillip M. Henderson; Vet charged for VA fraud

| March 29, 2015

The Associated Press reports that Phillip M. Henderson, an Army veteran from Kentucky was charged with VA fraud;

An indictment issued Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Charlottesville alleges 50-year-old Army veteran Phillip M. Henderson of Olive Hill, Kentucky, exaggerated his vision loss to receive benefits. The indictment says Henderson fraudulently received about $800,000, including money for installation of a swimming pool and a vehicle, over the last 20 years.

Henderson faces nine counts of wire fraud. Each count is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

I’m not exactly sure what a swimming pool has to do with vision, but right off the top of my head, I’m thinking that they need to investigate some VA employees. The same goes for an adaptive vehicle. Of course, maybe I’m a little jaded because I’m trying to get some adaptive work done to my house and an adapted vehicle so I can get back on the road, but the only VA employees I can talk to are the kind who give me excuses why I can’t get the work done – 9 months of that BS, meanwhile the VA is buying swimming pools for blind guys.

Category: Veterans' Affairs Department

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2/17 Air Cav

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three?”

“No, it’s two. Okay, the pool is yours. Sign right here.” And no one blinked when, w/o assistance, he signed beautifully and directly on the small signature line.
_________________________________________

“A pool?”

“Yes, a pool. I don’t need it personally. It’s for my seeing-eye seal that the VA issued me last year. He needs a pool.”

“Oh. Makes sense. Okay.”

Green Thumb

All the while the VA screws PH recipients and those with severe limitations.

I am holding up one finger, the middle finger. Fuck you, VA.

Lone Star 41

Super fuckin’ like

Thunderstixx

Adaptive driving for a guy that is claiming blindness???
Am I the only one that wonders about giving driving licenses to blind people being a bad decision from anyone ???
I mean, Stevie Wonder with a drivers license ???

Flagwaver

Maybe they just installed a huge red-tip cane on the front of it.

Oh, and a reflective belt for safety.

Hack Stone

Maybe those little reflective bumps that the highway maintenance crews install on the side of the road are actually Braille.

David

Like the Braille buttons on drive-through ATMs… maybe they are paying extra to but Braille labels on his car controls?

Flagwaver

How the hell do you adapt a vehicle to make it drivable for someone who is visually impaired?

Ex-344MP

By adding a Reflective Belt around it. Didn’t you know those things fix everything and also makes anything wrapped in it bulletproof.

Roger in Republic

I would go for a bi-focal, prescription. windshield. I’m sure they could correct his vision with one of those.

Green Thumb

Or a bi-facial.

Flagwaver

To quote Sterling Archer…

PHRASING!!!

Skippy

Car for a blind guy ????
Now this is the dumbest damn thing I’ve seen this year.. No wonder this joker got busted Lol…..

John Robert Mallernee

It may not be available to the public yet, but even as we’re discussing this post, a driverless car is being tested, by driving coast to coast automatically, but with a person riding along as an emergency backup.

So, the time is coming when blind people will be able to operate a motor vehicle on the open highway.

Also, I can see how the VA might supply a swimming pool to a blind veteran, for that may be the only physical exercise he can safely partake in, and the least stressful.

As for Sergeant Lilyea’s experience with the VA, I’ve “been there, done that”, and I’m still going through it.

But, on the VA’s behalf, I do admit that, despite my own difficulties, their system has improved, and hopefully, will continue to improve.

Also, treatment by the VA widely varies, according to location, i.e., the VAMC in Salt Lake City, Utah is far better than the VAMC in Biloxi, Mississippi, and the VAMC in Biloxi, Mississippi is far better than the VAMC in Washington, D.C.

Viet Nam combat veterans seeking compensation for PTSD are far more likely to receive it in California or Hawaii, but rarely, if ever, in Utah or Mississippi.

Flagwaver

It also depends on where to go, who gets the case, and what kind of a day they’ve had.

I am a buddy from my old unit both submitted out packets at about the same time. After months, we were both given a 10% non-service connected disability. Oh, did I mention he lost his leg in Iraq? It took another year for me to get my status changed, but he got his within three months. Well, his lawyer got his changed.

UH1AV8R

Saw the same thing in DC. Double leg amputee and one arm limb salvage and was awarded 30%. Senator from North Carolina had to get involved to get it fixed. Still took a few weeks. The VA is not a medical dept. it is a political dept. Office of professional management does this as a social experiment. It take 6 to 9 months to hire a employee and we all know that if you are looking for work and no one hires you in 6 to 9 months the person is usually a turd. But this is the person who will sit and not be hired by anyone else now becomes a VA employee.

Green Thumb

Word.

Hack Stone

A swimming pool for an allegedly blind veteran? Who is his caseworker, Esther Williams?

Bobo

I’m getting the paperwork put together to file for my post-retirement VA disability. I’m going to have to measure the back yard and see how big a pool I can have put in.

rb325th

I don’t get this shit at all. I have several claims denied due to things like “no evidence found in medical records”, or no confirmed diagnosis. Where in the case of the diagnosis, there damned sure is one right in my medical records. No idea what they were ignoring that day… Several times now they have played the no evidence of injury found in the record bit, only to have it miraculously show up in there.
Currently in addition to that I have conditions they notified my DAV rep were service connected and rated, which put me at 100% P&T…. only to have them all deferred by the VA the day after the letter from the DAV was dated.
But this guy got a swimming pool?? Another guy convinced them he was paralyzed? How in the hell do they even justify this bull shit?

Ab

I want to puke ! I hope this piss ant like prison !!

My husband waited months to get a eye appointment.