Denver man found guilty taking $19 million meant for Veterans, children with birth defects

Aurora Man Guilty Of Misdirecting $19 Million Meant For Veterans, Children With Birth Defects

CBS News Denver
March 14, 2020

“To steal from a program that is intended to help our veterans and their children who suffer from serious medical conditions is reprehensible,” said U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn. “Mr. Prince was also harming the American taxpayers and will now pay a significant price for his actions.”

Prince’s strategy netted nearly $19 million in payments from the Veterans Administration in little more than a year, according to prosecutors.

DENVER (CBS4) — A jury on Thursday found Joseph Prince, 60, of Aurora, guilty of felony health care fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and payment of illegal kickbacks — crimes that were committed during his employment at a call center. Prince’s tactics misdirected funds that were intended for veterans with children suffering from birth defects, according to the court documents.

The jury reached its verdict in Denver federal court after an eight-day trial.

In the federal indictment, investigators described how Prince, a VA call center employee in Denver, set up fake home health agencies, then convinced unknowing beneficiaries to submit invoices for services to those unapproved agencies.

Those fake agencies were run by Prince’s wife, brother-in-law, half-sister and friends.

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Annual Mental Health Checkups: ‘This Is A Game Changer’

UPDATE The "game" changed back in 2012!

The headline was "Soldiers seeking routine medical care now get PTSD screening as well"

There were 63,000 soldiers who went to the doctor for all kinds of things and during the checkup, they tested positive for mental health problems!

First-Of-Its-Kind Bill Would Cover Annual Mental Health Checkups: ‘This Is A Game Changer’

CBS News Denver
By Shaun Boyd
January 29, 2020

“Rather than dealing with an epidemic of opioid addiction and alcoholism, we’ll be dealing with these issues at the primary care level where they are much less expensive,” said Larson.

DENVER (CBS4) – Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet has a radical idea: to make mental health care just as routine and relevant as physical health care.

“This is a game changer. This is history.”

She says mental health care is currently crisis management.

“Imagine you go to your doctor, and your doctor says ‘Hey your blood pressure is up. Give me a call when you have a heart attack.’ That is how the behavioral health care system is set up right now.”

Michaelson Jenet introduced a bill with Rep. Colin Larson that would change the system, starting with annual mental health checkups covered by insurance just like annual physicals. If it passes, it would be the first law of its kind in the country.

The lawmakers say the goal of the bill is to identify and treat mental health issues before they’re in a crisis. Just as a physical screens for things like high cholesterol, a mental health checkup would screen for things like depression.

“Rather than dealing with an epidemic of opioid addiction and alcoholism, we’ll be dealing with these issues at the primary care level where they are much less expensive,” said Larson.

The bill would also give people a primary care provider to turn to if they do find themselves in crisis.
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Denver Police Officer shares story of recovery from PTSD to save others

Police, army veteran opens up about battle with PTSD, mental health struggles

9News
December 10, 2019

Brian Barry is a 36-year veteran of the Denver Police force and army veteran who has used opioids to cope with PTSD. Now, he's sharing his story.

Office of the Inspector General for Veterans Affairs Denver Did Nothing?

VA whistleblowers say Denver office did no work for a year
FOX 31 Denver
BY ROB LOW
JULY 24, 2018

"Long lunches, I mean watching movies, reading books. I mean I was doing school work. I`m not going to lie I did not have any work assigned. I spent the majority of my time doing school work," said whistblower No. one, who happened to be a paid intern making $47,214 a year to help conduct information technology audits.

DENVER -- Imagine making close to $100,000 a year and having nothing to do at the office.

It's what Denver whistleblowers say was reality for employees at the local Office of the Inspector General for Veterans Affairs.

That's the very division in charge of wiping out waste, fraud and abuse for the medical system that serves the nation's veterans.

"These are your tax dollars that are paying the salaries of these individuals to sit in an office and do absolutely nothing all day," said one anonymous whistleblower to the Problem Solvers.

"After a while it became a joke," is how a second whistleblower described it.

"Come into work and pretty much staring at the wall all day kind of just hanging out every day pretty much with nothing to do."

Both whistleblowers filed complaints with the Office of Special Counsel in Washington, stating an office of 11 employees basically did no work from April 2017 to April 2018.

The combined salaries of those employees during that time frame totaled more than $1.2 million.
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Marine veteran ran to help rollover victim

Marine veteran helps I-25 rollover victim
NBC 9 News
Author: Jennifer Meckles
May 1, 2018

“The Marines, they teach you to stay calm. And in a situation like this, that’s the number one, most important thing – you’re not thinking straight unless you’re calm.”

On Tuesday morning, Ryan Erwin was in a meeting at work when he and his colleagues heard a crash outside their office at Metro Construction near downtown Denver. Looking across Interstate 25, they could see the aftermath.

“I looked over the highway and I saw a truck on its side,” Erwin said. “I just kind of jumped into that first response, which is, you better go make sure everybody’s OK!”

Erwin ran across the interstate to the scene of the crash. He found a truck on its side, and the driver trying to climb out. Several other people were gathering around also trying to help.

“At that point, [the driver] was halfway out, crawling out the top," Erwin explained. "I helped him to the ground, I asked him some questions to make sure he was coherent, that he didn’t have any head injuries. and he seemed ok – but you never, know.”

“I remember he took my face,” said Steve Holden, the driver.

He said Erwin gave him directions and took control of the situation until first responders arrived.
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Armed Patient In Custody After VA Nurse Held Hostage

Patient holds nurse at gunpoint in VA hospital
KUSA
Blair Shiff
December 3, 2015

DENVER - A hostage situation at the VA Medical Center near East 10th Avenue and Colorado Boulevard is now over.

According to the VA Police, they initially responded at 8:20 a.m. on Thursday.

A man who was a patient at the hospital took a nurse practitioner hostage inside an exam room on the eighth floor. VA officials say he held a loaded gun to the nurse during the hostage situation.
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Denver Soldier Finds Home Best Medicine After Afghanistan

Home is the best medicine: Greeley soldier hurt in August home for Christmas 
Greeley Tribune
Dan England
December 29, 2014

For The Tribune/Tara Moriarty |

Carey Duvall lifts weights with his right prosthesis. 

Duvall was hurt in an attack in August during a mission 

in Afghanistan and spent the Christmas holiday with 

his parents in Greeley.

Carey Duvall had a good time back home. He got to stay at his parents’ place in Greeley, go see family in Denver and spent some time with friends, including a buddy who wanted him to be in a short movie.

The buddy told him he wouldn’t trust anyone else with the lines, but Duvall, 25, knew better. “He just wants me to play the one-armed apocalyptic survivor,” Duvall said.

Indeed, Duvall did play that part in the movie. As it turns out, Duvall said with a laugh, he was perfect for it. In late August, Duvall was leading his U.S. Army convoy on a routine mission in Afghanistan, on a deployment that seemed so benign he never discussed the possibility of getting hurt with his fiancée.

There was an explosion. The blast was powerful enough to toss his vehicle, basically a heavily armored semi-tractor, 25 feet off the road.

His platoon acted quickly enough to save most of his arm, but the attack broke several bones in his right leg, wrist and pelvis. The worst came to his right hand: He lost four fingers and about half of the rest. He was, of course, right-handed.

Duvall doesn’t mind talking about it. He read an article in “Time” magazine that stated telling the story helps ease the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, one of the most common aliments of a solider.

It helps his brain, he said, to relive it. This is exactly the kind of way Duvall, who got a degree in history from the University of Colorado, approaches life: He researches it. “He’s basically a nerd,” said his fiancée, Tara Moriarty.
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Iraq veteran nearly killed by gunshot in Denver

Iraq War veteran nearly killed in violent attack on Colfax Ave. in Denver
FOX 31 Denver
November 21, 2012
by Justin Joseph

DENVER — R and B Superstar Lauren Hill was the featured performer at the Fillmore last Friday night.

Jennifer Muenzenmayer and her friend Jonathan Hammond had just left when it happened. “Jonathan put me in the passenger side of the vehicle. He walked to driver`s side and that`s when he was attacked,” said Muenzenmayer.

The attack happened at E. Colfax Ave. and Pearl St., just one block from Denver’s largest police precinct.

Cell phone video captured the chaos as police came from every direction. Two men tried to rob Hammond, and when he refused, one of them shot him, piercing a major artery in his leg.

It was the third violent crime in Capitol Hill in just weeks.

“All I can do is pray and have faith in God,” said June Hammond, Jonathan’s mother.

“There`s nothing like getting a phone call at 3 o’clock in the morning and you have no idea what happened other than there was a shooting and your son’s in critical condition.”

But Jonathan Hammond is much more than just a victim of another crime.

He’s a veteran surviving 12 years in the Iraq war.

All of that, and it was a bullet last Friday night in Denver that nearly killed him.
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Iraq Vet and pregnant wife homeless in Denver

Returning Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers creating influx of homeless vets
May 9, 2012
by Jeremy Hubbard

DENVER — For weeks, FOX 31 Denver has been reporting on Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers coming home from war. But what about those soldiers who don’t have a home to come home to?

The Department of Veterans Affairs is noticing a disproportionate number of younger veterans on the streets. According to USA Today, about 13,000 of the nation’s homeless in 2010 were ex-service members between 18 and 30. Many of them, returning Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers.

For those with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), traumatic brain injuries or other ailments, coming home from war can be the start of a downward spiral. Unable to find jobs, soldiers often wind up on the streets.

Victor Johnson from Colorado Springs joined the Army after 9/11. He served in Iraq, but was injured when an IED hit his truck during the final security patrol of his deployment. It left him with a leg injury so bad, his doctors were considering amputation. Still, when he returned home, he expected a normal life.

“It didn`t work out that way,” Johnson told FOX 31 Denver. “Seems like it took a spiral in the wrong direction.”

He made a series of bad decisions, wound up in jail, and was evicted from his home. He and his wife Yvonda have spent the last few years in and out of temporary homes, and have spent the last several weeks on the streets.

It’s a stressful time. Especially since Yvonda is pregnant, and due to give birth any day now.

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Craig Walker wins Pulitzer for images of Iraq veteran with PTSD

Denver Post photographer Craig Walker wins Pulitzer for images of Iraq veteran with PTSD

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 16, 2012
DENVER — Craig F. Walker, a photographer for The Denver Post, has won his second Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in three years.

Walker on Monday was named the 2012 winner for "Welcome Home", a series (http://bit.ly/vtKbHd ) that chronicled Colorado resident Scott Ostrom's struggles with severe post-traumatic stress disorder after four years as a Marine Corps reconnaissance man and two deployments to Iraq. Ostrom was honorably discharged in 2007.

The Pulitzer board cited Walker's "compassionate chronicle of an honorably discharged veteran, home from Iraq and struggling with a severe case of post-traumatic stress, images that enable viewers to better grasp a national issue."
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Welcome Home
Photo Essay: The Story of Scott Ostrom
After serving four years as a reconnaissance man and deploying twice to Iraq, Brian Scott Ostrom, now 27, returned home to the U.S. with a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder. “The most important part of my life already happened. The most devastating. The chance to come home in a box. Nothing is ever going to compare to what I’ve done, so I’m struggling to be at peace with that,” Scott said.

He attributes his PTSD to his second deployment to Iraq, where he served seven months in Fallujah with the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion. “It was the most brutal time of my life,” he said. “I didn’t realize it because I was living it. It was a part of me.” Since his discharge, Scott has struggled with daily life, from finding and keeping employment to maintaining healthy relationships. But most of all, he’s struggled to overcome his brutal and haunting memories of Iraq. Nearly five years later, Scott remains conflicted by the war. Though he is proud of his service and cares greatly for his fellow Marines, he still carries guilt for things he did — and didn’t do — fighting a war he no longer believes in.

A picture of Scott holding his little brother after graduating boot camp at Paris Island, S.C., in June 2003 hangs on the refrigerator at Scott's new apartment.

Scott counts the stitches in his wrist while having a drink at a bar in Boulder after his suicide attempt.

Click link above for more of this powerful series of photographs.

Denver Drug Court Opens a Special Track for Veterans

Does having PTSD give them the right to break the law? No and they don't expect to be able to do it any more than they want to break the law. When it comes to combat veterans this goes far beyond the normal because they are not "normal" citizens. Normal citizens live in a tiny world of their own with their own problems focusing on their own needs, wants and desires first. Face it, we're basically self-centered, caring about people in our lives and oblivious to others. While combat veterans have the same wants, needs and desires as the rest of us, they didn't put themselves first when they decided to serve in the military. The country came first, in other words, all of us. Then it was the men and women they served with coming before themselves. Their family and friends came after that and they were willing to be away from them so they could do what the country asked of them. This all came with a higher price for a third of them.

When what they saw and what they did became too heavy on their souls, they sought help reluctantly. Why? Not just because of what some experts point to as a stigma. It goes beyond that. People like them are the ones being turned to to help and they are the least likely to ask for it for themselves. When they do seek it, most of the time it is a battle to get and when they do get it, it is not what they need. When almost half of the suicide deaths came after seeking help, that is a massive inditement on the support they have waiting for them.

Medications are another issue. Some have been found to be useless. Some have been found to do more harm than good. Can anyone really wonder why they would end up using drugs or drinking to numb their pain away and calm themselves down? Can anyone blame them for avoiding what has been passed off as "care" when they see their buddies getting worse instead of better?

This is why there is a great need for Veterans' Courts. They have broken the law. The same law attached to the nation they were willing to die for. With Veterans' Courts they end up having someone with knowledge watching over them instead of just pushing them away or locking them up. They have to do their part and do what the judge orders them to do or they end up in jail. This is not a "get out of jail free" pass but it is a chance to heal.

Denver Drug Court Opens a Special Track for Veterans
September 27, 2011 By Zachary Willis

Earlier this month, the Denver Adult Drug Court implemented a Veterans Track within its existing problem-solving courts program. As a result, some military veterans charged with non-violent crimes may now have the opportunity to be enrolled in the court-monitored treatment and accountability program.

The drug court program was expanded to create the new track, which is designed to balance the specialized treatment needs of veterans with the need to protect the community’s safety. The goal is to provide non-violent offenders with effective treatment while still holding them accountable for their actions.

According to the press release from State Judicial, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals reports that one in six veterans returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from a substance abuse challenge; one in five has symptoms of a mental disorder or cognitive impairment. Post-traumatic stress disorder can be an underlying factor in crimes allegedly committed by veterans and their subsequent involvement with the criminal justice system.
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WWII Vet who died in prison gets national cemetery plot

Vet who died in prison gets national cemetery plot
By DAN ELLIOTT (AP)

DENVER — Some military veterans are angry that a World War II soldier who died in prison after pleading guilty to killing his wife is scheduled to be buried Tuesday in Denver's Fort Logan National Cemetery.

Raymond R. Sawyer, a former Marine from Colorado, died Aug. 11 in a Tucson, Ariz., state prison while serving 13 years for second-degree murder.

His wife, Frances A. Sawyer, was found strangled in August 1981 in Glendale, Ariz., where the couple lived. The case remained unsolved for 26 years.

In 2007, sometime after Raymond Sawyer moved to the Denver suburb of Arvada, a cold-case investigator from Glendale went to Arvada to interview him in hopes of turning up new leads, Glendale police said.

During the interview, Sawyer "broke down" and made statements about the slaying that only the killer could have known, Glendale spokesman Matt Barnett said at the time.

Sawyer was arrested and taken to Arizona. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison in 2008.

Besides citing the slaying, Sawyer's critics also say he once falsely claimed to have received the Navy Cross, the military branch's second-highest medal for valor.
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Vet who died in prison gets national cemetery plot

Big homecoming for recovering Marine

If you are in the military or a veteran, ever wondered if the American people really cared, I urge you to watch this video and know how much you do mean.

Big homecoming for recovering Marine
posted by: Jeffrey Wolf written by: Anastasiya Bolton

DENVER - In a place where crowds are a given and homecomings happen every day, a couple of hundred people, most perfect strangers, gathered to surprise one man in a way that doesn't happen every day.

Sherra Basham has never met Lance Corporal John Thomas Doody or his family. She heard about him coming home and decided people needed to show up to honor the 26-year-old Marine.

"I'm here to show a Marine how much America cares for his sacrifice and everything he's done for us," Basham said. "For me it's every American in these United States taking a moment to say thank you Lance Corporal Doody."

Basham got about 75 of her friends to come celebrate the Marine's return.

J.T. as most people call him, was shot three times in the leg in Iraq in March 2007.

Then, the infection he got paralyzed him and put him in a coma. Wednesday, he arrived back in Denver, alive and able to talk, a miracle the way his family sees it.
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Big homecoming for recovering Marine

Colorado National Guardsmen take aid to snowbound travelers

Colo. Guard takes aid to snowbound travelers

By Katie Oyan - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Apr 18, 2009 14:58:03 EDT

DENVER — Colorado transportation officials on Saturday reopened a lengthy section of Interstate 70 that was closed overnight, stranding hundreds of travelers, by a storm that dumped more than 3 feet of snow in the region west of Denver.

A winter storm warning remained in effect for parts of the state, the National Weather Service said.

More than 500 people had spent the night at three shelters in Idaho Springs and Georgetown after the closure of the 80-mile stretch of I-70 in the mountains, said Jim Rettew, an American Red Cross spokesman.

The Colorado National Guard delivered two truckloads of cots, blankets and food to the stranded travelers.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/04/ap_colorado_guard_snow_041809/

Denver Vietnam Veterans reach out to new generation

Vietnam Vets Reach Out To Iraq Vets
Written for the Web by CBS4 Special Projects Producer Libby Smith
Reporting
Suzanne McCarroll
DENVER (CBS4) ―

Some estimates say nearly 20 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). In Denver, those military men and women are getting some help from an unexpected group -- veterans from another war.

"There are four major situations I was involved in where I had to kill individuals not only with gunfire but stabbings," said Mike Tarby, a retired member of the U.S. Army who served in Vietnam for 2 years.

It has been 40 years since the Vietnam War and yet for many vets, the nightmares of their time in combat are as vivid as if the war was yesterday. Five men, all who served in Vietnam, are paying it forward to vets returning from the Iraq war who suffer from PTSD.

Chuck Douglas served in Vietnam. He also spent time in the residential treatment program at Denver's Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital.

"You wanted to go back over there because it felt more comfortable. It's what you knew. You didn't want to be here because you weren't welcome home," Douglas told CBS4click link for more