Air Force Veteran Sentenced for Fake PTSD, Purple Heart Claims
Purple Heart Close Up
22 Dec 2019
The Fayetteville Observer, N.C. | By Rachael Riley
The claim read like countless Veterans Affairs claims and Purple Heart awards.
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.
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.
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.
U.S. Attorney Robert J. Higdon, Jr. announced Winquist’s sentence for the false claims earlier this month.
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.
He was also ordered to pay a $31,000 fine and $11,669.06 to the VA.
“To commit a fraud upon the VA is to steal from those who have risked their lives to protect this nation,” Higdon said. “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.”
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.
The worst kind of Valor Thief. Read the rest of the article here: Military.com
Category: Air Force, Iraq, Valor Vultures
Tell me again how my pos brother has been able to run the same scam for 30 years and collect over $750K, The VA and the FBI don’t care, we have even offered them all the evidence they need and yet they still take no action? I would sure like to collect the whistle blower award on this pos!
I remember reading this case about a week ago:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ednc/pr/air-force-veteran-sentenced-charges-arising-false-claims-department-veterans-affairs
“WINQUIST admitted during an interview that he fabricated the incident. In particular, he stated, “I was hurting for money, and I made it up.” WINQUIST also stated that he knew it was wrong.”
At least he admitted he lied.
Not so much with others who have been exposed on TAH.
“Although WINQUIST was deployed to Balad, Iraq for ONE MONTH, he was assigned to the base as a firefighter.” YGTBSM
Well, the claim did mention a fire fight…
Burning the popcorn baggie doesn’t count.
Hope the POS gets a severely bruised taint during his “intermittent confinement.”
As big a POS as he is, I put the most blame on the VA that should have verified these claims. Another tip of the iceberg showing the problems with the gubmint as a whole. No wonder we can’t have nice things.
Blaming the VA was my initial reaction then I got to thinking about it because there have been several of these cases. My belief is the VA is so gun-shy from all of the deserved criticism received they grant these requests to avoid more Congressional complaints; then they thankfully follow up in some cases. I offer the foregoing with the belief no government agency can be that messed up there is not an understandable reason for giving away money to phonies.
I think that’s exactly it. Except we end up in a situation where they’re paying out benefits on three times the number of POWs from Vietnam than were ever taken prisoner. So I think they’ve gone too far in the “trust and verify eventually” direction.
Gotta vote with you on this one. Sure, a lot of things are difficult to diagnose, but this supposedly included a gunshot wound. How difficult is it to ask the guy to show you his shoulder where there should be some scarring from it?
Aw, come ON, people. This crap is just not that difficult. Of course, the staff folks who shuffle the papers get paid the same whether they are denying legitimate claims or approving bogus ones.
“She turned me into a newt!”
…
“I got better.”
I bet that about half the money the VA pays out for PTSD disability claims is paid on phony claims like this one. I have talked to several vets who have admitted they are collecting for PTSD they don’t have. One of them collecting it for his Viet of the Nam service drove a bulldozer in a construction battalion; h was never under enemy fire.
… he admitted he was never under enemy fire. Yeah, I know, he could have witnessed some poor bastard getting run over by a backing bulldozer, cuz I worked a civil case where that happened. But he admitted he had no traumatic events on his tour in that SEA paradise. He said his VA rep set him up to get the PTSD disability so he could get a 51% disability award he needed for free VA medical benefits.
I was at Balad for 15 months. The base had about 3 shitloads of guns facing out during the 2003-2004 time period. Along with two artillery fans we were inside of. Not to mention, the fighter wing on base, that could scramble in about a minute.
I was on the NECP, and while we took a lot of mortars and rockets, we only once took any small arms fire, and that was one guy that sprayed the base from a half mile away with his AK.
I passed through Balad quite a bit, visiting my Soldiers stationed there (they were collocated with our sister battalion) and recall mortars or rockets every night… required to wear Kevlar and body armor even to the shower! Never had an issue getting in or out like other bases, so a 45 minute firefight would have been notable!
He should have used Camp Boom in Baqubah it would have been more believable
Idiot!!!!!
Hope it was worth it moron
He worked as a civilian firefighter on FT Campbell. Not only did he claim to have been shot in Iraq, the story he told us was that he was a Navy Seal who got shot in the early days of the Iraq war by an Iraqi kid who he subsequently curb stomped to death. He left the Navy because he wasn’t going to be a Seal sitting at a desk job. Everything he said was a lie and he needs to be made famous.