Scammer’s lies earned big disability checks

This ought to make you mad considering this stunt comes at a time when real wounded combat veterans can't get appointments at the VA and can't get their claims approved to get the disability compensation and see all they worked for slip away. Think of them and the families they have and know when people like this are able to pull off shams like this, they are not just doing it to the government, they are doing it to real veterans!


Scammer’s lies earned big disability checks

By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday May 10, 2008 7:00:21 EDT

Randall A. Moneymaker looked good on paper. He was a veteran of Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama and Grenada. He was an airborne Ranger who had earned two Combat Infantryman Badges, a Combat Action Badge, two Combat Parachutist Badges and a Purple Heart. He was expertly qualified in the M16 rifle, the M60 machine gun, the M203 rocket launcher, the pistol, grenades, bayonets and tank weapons.

The man who parachuted with the Australian, British, Canadian, Dominican, German, Honduran, Italian and Thai militaries also had the Pathfinder and Special Operations Diver badges and suffered physical and mental scars from combat.

However, this impressive list of achievements spanning a 20-plus-year Army career was not worth the paper on which it was printed.

On March 24, a jury in Virginia found Moneymaker, 44, guilty of fabricating his service record and lying about his achievements and combat injuries to scam more than $18,000 in disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. He faces up to 35 years in federal prison.

Moneymaker, who is free on bond, is scheduled to be sentenced June 20 in Roanoke, Va.

“I just think that when a country’s at war, it brings out the best in people, but it also brings out the worst in some people,” said Craig “Jake” Jacobsen, the assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia who prosecuted Moneymaker.

Moneymaker used “different levels of deceit” against not only combat veterans but service members who are wounded in the line of duty, said Jacobsen, who also is a lieutenant colonel assigned to the Army Reserve’s 12th Legal Support Organization.

“This guy just didn’t want to be recognized for war achievements,” he said. “He used it to not only get retirement but also a monthly disability [check].”

Moneymaker and his attorney, Charles Covati, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

It’s fairly common for phony heroes to take their deception beyond falsely claiming acts of combat bravery to committing other crimes, FBI Special Agent Mike Sanborn said.

“Just because they’re wearing fake medals doesn’t mean they’re not doing something else. They’re scamming somebody else. They’re using their fraudulent military service to gain something. Usually, it’s financial,” said Sanborn, whose Washington, D.C., field office handles or is involved in all the agency’s cases relating to the Stolen Valor Act.