Detained Marine veteran moved to Salem VA hospital

UPDATE August 24, 2012
Va. judge orders release of detained veteran

Detained Marine veteran moved to Salem VA hospital
By: KRISTEN GREEN
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: August 21, 2012
HOPEWELL, Va.

Brandon J. Raub, the 26-year-old Marine Corps veteran who was detained involuntarily last week after federal and local officials questioned him about his Facebook posts, was being moved to the Salem Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Tuesday, his attorney said.

John W. Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville-based civil liberties organization, filed an emergency motion in Hopewell General District Court to keep Raub at John Randolph Medical Center. Special Justice Walter Douglas Stokes, who on Monday ordered Raub held for up to 30 additional days, denied the motion Tuesday afternoon, Whitehead said.

Stokes said in the hearing Monday that Raub would get better care in a VA hospital and that the Hopewell center where he had been held since Thursday was only appropriate for a temporary placement, said Raub's mother, Cathleen Thomas.

Whitehead said hospital officials indicated that Raub could not be kept in a closer VA hospital, such as the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, without voluntarily committing himself.

An Aug. 13 post said, "Sharpen up my axe; I'm here to sever heads." Raub also accused the government of perpetrating a "great amount of evil." "The day of reckoning is almost at hand," an Aug. 5 post on his Facebook page said. His attorney said many of the things he wrote on his page were song lyrics.

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