Keith Roberts update

An innocent and reportedly depressed Navy Airman Keith Roberts (1968-71) suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and serving a four-year sentence for wire fraud since March 2007, has for reasons unclear been moved and caged in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Minnesota for almost a month, according to the veteran's wife.

Roberts was targeted by the US Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2003-05, and became the central figure in an Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic of Wisconsin and top VA officials schemed to convict Roberts’ of fraudulently receiving VA benefits (by wire transfer as the VA requires).

Despite hostility from high quarters of the VA, Roberts may be again granted the benefits for which he is federal prison for receiving.

U.S. Atty Biskupic is the same U.S. Atty who infamously prosecuted an innocent Wisconsin woman in a political prosecution, and several innocent Wisconsin citizens for voter fraud in apparent service to the needs of the national GOP.

The honorably discharged Roberts, from Gillett, Wisconsin (Oconto county)veteran, has a criminal appeal pending before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and simultaneously has an administrative appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims’ (CAVC) on his VA disability case, litigating the same set of facts before two judicial forums.
Roberts and his veteran allies hope for a decision this sometime this year.

Roberts’ U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) claim for his diagnosed PTSD (granted and since challenged repeatedly and denied by the VA) is related to, among other stressors, trying to save his friend, Florida native Airman Gary Holland, from being crushed to death by a C-54 airplane while stationed at a naval air base in Naples, Italy in 1969.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice, in the office of US Atty Stephen Biskupic, made the unusual argument of contending (and convincing a jury in federal court) that Holland and Roberts were not friends (an assertion knocked down) and that Roberts was not part of an unsuccessful rescue effort to save Airman Holland, though Roberts was on line duty at the time and the base equivalent of general quarters had sounded as Holland slowly was crushed to death.

Roberts' wife, Delores, sent the following e-mail to this writer over the weekend.

There is nothing at my end of the world to relate to anyone that is good news. Keith has been in solitary for well over a month, no word yet as to why he is there, he can not make telephone calls and when we visited him one month ago he had just been placed there and no word as to why. He is allowed to make one telephone call per month. … He has not heard from the 7th nor from the CAVC. … If you know anyone that would be interested in going to national news on TV or otherwise, that would probably help. Don't know what to do or what to think. (Too) damn depressed, just (to) do the daily functioning, go to work, eat, sleep and occasionally clean house only when needed. Nothing else to report, the rest of the story is too damn depressing to even talk about.
Veteran-advocacy groups deride the delivery of health care and disability benefits to our veterans today as just another example of Bush administration incompetence in administering government services and entitlements to which it is ideologically hostile, a la FEMA and disaster relief.

Roberts had hounded the VA to distraction and when he accused the VA of outright fraud in 2003, one VA Special Agent Raymond Vasil retaliated against this Vietnam-era veteran for seeking retroactive PTSD-related disability benefits—administrative events by Vietnam-era veterans that are politically unpopular with the American Enterprise Institute and the Bush administration.

It is in this context that Roberts was reportedly argumentative and insulting to the VA, accusing the VA of fraud.

“[T]he only reason Airman Roberts was ever prosecuted was because he was a ‘belligerent ass’ who kept insisting that he get paid back to discharge. He was demanding an appeal in Washington,” said the source at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee who e-mailed the Lee Rayburn radio show in Madison in early June 2007 about the Roberts affair. “I'd have to say that you guys are TOTALLY (uppercase in the original) right about Roberts' conviction being bullshit ...”

On August 16, 2004, the VA halted the benefits being paid to Roberts based upon Vasil’s investigation; Roberts appealed the decision on September 14, 2004, and was indicted seven months later.

The case has also drawn the attention of Harper's magazine contributor and human rights attorney, Scott Horton:

(T)ake a look at another prosecution brought in Wisconsin against a wounded vet, whose claims for benefits was turned into a criminal prosecution for wire fraud. As Wisconsin Public Radio reports, Keith Roberts, a Navy veteran got into the U.S. attorney’s crosshairs by filing a claim for benefits related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosed as occurring because he witnessed and tried to prevent his friend from being crushed to death by a C-54 airplane while stationed at a Naval air base in Naples, Italy 1969, and unrelated assault by the Navy Shore Patrol—granted and then denied, has not yet been decided by the CAVC. But the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) after being accused of fraud in 2003 by Roberts ignored the CAVC process and investigated and asked that Roberts be prosecuted for fraud by the US Attorney’s office.

The prosecution smacks of retaliation and a plan to suppress veterans claims—Roberts was prosecuted for tenaciously pursuing a claim for benefits, which VA resisted and which is still in the benefits review process. It may be that the veteran is making claims which shouldn't’t be granted, but the decision to resist them by a criminal complaint is very heavy handed. What happens if the Veterans’ Appeals process rules for Roberts? As I read these papers, that seems possible. ...
Legal questions and legal comments can be e-mailed to Robert Walsh at: rpwalsh@sbcglobal.net.

[Much of the above piece has been previously published in numerous veteran advocates' media.]

Veterans' advocates ask that you please contact the following members of Congress expressing your objection that Roberts was:

- Singled out by the VA and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney because he spoke out against the fraudulent and slow VA

- Was prosecuted for wire fraud while his VA disability benefits claim was and is still being adjudicated in the VA claims process

Rep. John Conyers, Jr
Chair, House Committee on the Judiciary
E-mail: John.Conyers@mail.house.gov
(Phone) (313) 961-5670(Fax) (313) 226-2085

Rep. Tammy Baldwin
Member, House Committee on the Judiciary
E-mail: Field: http://tammybaldwin.house.gov/get_address.html
(Phone) (608) 258-9800
(Fax) (608) 258-9808

Contributions can be sent to:
Keith A. Roberts Defense Fund, Inc.
c/o Kentucky Neighborhood Bank
201 E. Lincoln Trail Blvd.
Radcliff, KY 40160

Media on Keith Roberts

- National VA Director Pushed US Atty Biskupic to Indict Wisconsin Veteran
- New Evidence in Jailed Vet Case, Witness Contradicts Prosecution in E-Mail
- More Evidence Clears Innocent Jailed Wisconsin Veteran
- Jailed Wis Vet Makes Due Process, Evidence Arguments in Appeal
- Fighting the US DoJ and the VA in Two Courts at Once
- DoJ Memo Conflicts with U.S. Atty Biskupic Address at Oral Arguments for Jailed Wisconsin Vet
- Harper's Magazine. Scott Horton: US Attorneys' scandal - US Atty Stephen Biskupic
- Wisconsin Public Radio News (May 10, 2007)
- The Lee Rayburn show (June 29, 2007)
- Keith Roberts' Atty. on the Lee Rayburn show (June 6, 2007)
- The Lee Rayburn show (May 24; 2007 begins at 44 min., 24 sec.)

Oral Arguments in U.S. v. Roberts
Access oral arguments. [Enter 07-1546 in the Case Number's fields by entering 07 in the "Year," and entering 1546 in the "Year Fragment's" field. Give the file some 45 seconds at least to load.]

Below is a piece from June 7, 2007 disconfirming much of the US Atty's case against Roberts.


June 7, 2007
More Dismantlement of Case Against Jailed Wisconsin Veteran

By Michael Leon


Madison, Wisconsin—An analysis reveals more corroboration of the account of a Vietnam-era airman who witnessed a colleague's death in a gruesome C-54 aircraft accident in 1969 at a Naval Air Facility in Naples, Italy and is now imprisoned for wire fraud.

The crushing death of Airman Gary Holland in the wheel well of the C-54 set in motion a chain of events that 36 years later led the US Veterans Administration (VA) and the US Atty for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in 2006 to indict and convict a veteran, Airman Keith Roberts (1968-71), diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), on charges of wire fraud, arguing that Roberts fabricated his role at the death scene and his relationship with Holland, defrauding the VA.


Roberts is currently is serving 48 months in federal prison.

The US v. Keith A. Roberts indictment on mail fraud (April 26, 2005) and later superseded by an indictment on wire fraud alleges in part that Roberts in his “(s)cheme to (d)efraud” the VA “falsely represented material information to the VA” including “that Roberts and airman Gary (Holland) were close friends and roommates.”In fact, an analysis obtained from Roberts wife, Deloris Roberts, of the service histories Gary Holland and Keith Roberts reveals parallel military careers that would make it unlikely that Holland and Roberts were not at least friendly in their relationship, and that contradicts the prosecution’s indictment and trial statements.


Holland and Roberts:

- Took two weeks-long classes together while stationed together in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968
- Were quartered in the same barracks at Lakehurst, NJ where they also trained together for weeks
- Went into the Naval Air Force base in Naples, Italy together as two young airman
- Slept in close quarters (feet away from each other) while at Naval Air Station base in Naples, Italy
- Worked in the same and only base air hangar together
- Took an advancement test together on the morning of the day Holland was killed on Feb. 4, 1969


“I’d say there was a pretty good chance that Keith Roberts and Gary Holland were friends,” said Deloris Roberts. “The prosecution must know this fact.”

Very little exculpatory information was introduced at Roberts’ trial by his court-appointed attorney, and much exculpatory information was not introduced.


VA Policy

After being diagnosed with PTSD and granted disability benefits, Roberts had no idea that political and bureaucratic forces allied with (then) VA Secretary Jim Nicholson in 2004-05 were determined to adopt the policies of the rightwing think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), ultimately resulting in Roberts’ prosecution after Roberts phoned the VA and complained that the VA were engaging in fraud in processing his PTSD disability claim.


Roberts's phone call and accusation of VA fraud sounded the alarm bells at the VA.Under the Bush administration, the VA is using propaganda to defend a reduction in benefits to veterans with PTSD, and redirect blame towards the troops themselves, often dismissing the PTSD as a mere pre-existing personality disorder, not requiring VA disability benefits, as 100,000s of troops return home form Iraq and Afghanistan damaged and forgotten.

Roberts’ benefits were ultimately cut after his phone call, and US Atty Stephen Biskupic's office used the VA benefits-severed administrative fact as a means of prosecuting Roberts in a criminal process.


Biskupic is the enforcer of a new VA policy adopted from the AEI that veterans suffering from PTSD wallow in a "culture of trauma" and do not deserve "entitlements;" and what Roberts attorney calls "a VA culture of claims denial that has turned into a criminalization of the disability claims process."

Roberts remains a warning to other Vietnam-era veterans suffering from PTSD to not file for PTSD benefits.
MALContends blog

Sphere: Related Content