Woman Charged Defrauding Vietnam Veterans

Woman charged in scam 
Suspect accused in fraud of veteran and vet organization
Durant Democrat.com
By Matt Swearengin
January 24. 2015

A Caddo woman is facing felony charges dealing with defrauding a veteran and using a computer to obtain money from an organization for veterans. Sixty-two-year-old Deborah Sue Lemmones was charged Friday with exploitation of an elderly person or disabled adult and computer fraud. 

Lemmones came under investigation after Richard Chase, a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran who is now deceased, spoke to the Bryan County District Attorney’s Office about a woman he said had been defrauding veterans. Before his death on July 26, 2014, Chase was active with the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 986 in Durant.

He contacted authorities after learning of several incidents where Lemmones had allegedly convinced veterans to loan her large sums of money. Chase also had spoken with the Democrat about the allegations and he had prepared an article he planned to release after the suspect was charged.

Chase said one of the victims suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other health problems. He said there was another victim in a nursing home and that individual later died, and also a victim in Madill.

District Attorney Investigator David Cathey then investigated allegations that Lemmones had financially exploited several disabled veterans in southern Oklahoma.

Local Vietnam Veterans of America Treasurer Paul Blake told Cathey he had identified 20 electronic withdrawals from February 2012 until December 2013 from the VVA bank account at First United Bank, and according to the affidavit, each of the transactions, totaling $7,953.11, was used to pay the phone bill of Walter Lemmones.

“Lemmones believed it was OK to have the VVA pay her phone bill even though she had been ousted from the organization for quite some time because she was still using the phone to help veterans,” Cathey wrote in his affidavit. read more here