Man Arrested for Fraud After Using Homeless Veterans

Deputies arrest Ormond man in veterans charity fraud

Daytona Beach News Journal

Seth Robbins
December 29, 2017

An Ormond Beach man has been accused of running a sham veterans charity after investigators said he scammed several local businesses that had provided services for a benefit golf tournament headlined by a former NFL player.

Christopher Blake, 46, faces a felony charge of organized scheme to defraud after he received donations and services under the guise of a charity called “Second Chance Veterans Foundation,” Volusia County sheriff’s detectives said.

Blake held a late October golf tournament at DeBary Golf and Country Club where he brought in a friend, retired NFL football player Gerald Riggs, to be the star. But the golf course, a sign maker, a hotel and even Riggs were left empty-handed after Blake paid them with bad checks for their services or tried to skirt payment entirely, according to a charging affidavit.

The website for Blake’s charity, which boasted of a Memorial Day raffle of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle that was said to have been donated by Bruce Rossmeyer’s Harley-Davidson, was also investigated. The raffle was to be held at Ace Cafe in Orlando, and the proceeds from it were to go to the area’s homeless veterans. But when Elmazi contacted the motorcycle dealership and the cafe, both owners said that the advertising was false.

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80% Veterans Complete Veterans Court Succeed

A few things to notice when you watch the video on the link. They start the session with the Pledge of Allegiance. The other is that the entire courtroom is there supporting the veteran who just graduated from the program...including his family!

Top that off with the veteran wants to turn around and help other veterans succeed as well!


Veterans court gives second chance to some struggling vets
WESH 2 News
Greg Fox
December 29, 2017

Judge Bryan Feigenbaum said more than 80 percent of those who graduate do not repeat their crimes.

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla.
WESH 2 News has details on a court program that helps veterans, instead of sending them to jail.

WESH 2's Greg Fox met a combat veteran who got a second chance after an armed standoff with police.

The man has been rehabilitated and is hoping to help others.

Kevin Hamilton, like others eligible for the pretrial diversion program, is a veteran with an honorable discharge. He was an Army sergeant and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hamilton suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and held his family hostage and threatened his own life in an armed standoff in Ormond Beach in 2015 that ended peacefully.

Veterans court gave Hamilton a second chance: counseling, probation and mentoring, or face prison time.
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Mayor/Afghanistan Veteran Said "Yes" to Boyfriend

'He said yes!' South Bend mayor says he and his boyfriend are getting married
Associated Press
December 29, 2017

Buttigieg is a Rhodes scholar who served a seven-month deployment in Afghanistan in 2014 as a Naval Reserve officer.

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced on Facebook Thursday that he and his boyfriend Chasten Glezman are engaged.(Robert Franklin / AP) 

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg says he and his boyfriend are getting married.

The 35-year-old Democrat announced on Facebook Thursday that he and Chasten Glezman are engaged, writing that "He said yes!" The mayor's spokesman confirmed the announcement.

Buttigieg says he's looking forward to spending the rest of his life with Glezman, who is a middle school teacher.

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Vietnam Veterans Fighting Forgotten Battle

This is exactly why I do what I do and why I have done it for over 3 decades.

This is my Vietnam veteran!

By the time September 11th hit, we, as a country had been working on PTSD for decades.

In the 70's, the DAV commissioned a study on PTSD and called it The Forgotten Warrior Project." Guess they figured having done this research, Vietnam veterans would never be forgotten again. After all, it was because of them that the far reaching effects of trauma became more understood. 

Surviving was only part of the residual damage done.

Anyway, having been totally involved in all of this, by 9-11, we were ready for what was to come in Vietnam veterans long before talk of more wars ever made the news. We knew we were already fighting one in our homes and trying to keep our veterans alive!

Strange thing is, I went to New York a month before 9-11 and had already finished my manuscript, For the Love of Jack, His War/My Battle.

Jonathan Shay was kind enough to review it for me and then tried to help me get it published. No one wanted it.

August 10, 2001

Hi Jonathan,
Well I said I would send it by the end of the week and here it is.  I will be in New York/New Jersey until August 16^th.  Maria and I are finally going away to spend some time with my favorite cousin and her family.  We are excited because we are going to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, as well as a few other places.  We want to look up our relatives that came from Greece and Italy.
I hope that I didn’t sound too down with the last email I sent you.  It has just been very hard to keep feeling the pain I was writing about.  I worked so hard to heal with my psychologist, that I kept getting pulled back into the bad memories writing the book.  I often wished I never wrote it but I know it helped me to get over the anger and frustration of living with John.  I hope it will help someone else.
I don’t know what I would have done without all the help, advice and encouragement you gave me.  I admire your work so much that it was an honor that you took the time to help me.  There were so many times that I couldn’t believe that you were actually concerned with someone like me.  I don’t know how writers do it.  
Well it is done and I can get back to just living my life and doing the best I can for us.  I have been so busy at work that I am totally exhausted when I get home, and still have to take care of the house, supper and the dog ect.  It will feel good to have a few moments of free time.  I am sure you will put to good use the time you won’t have to spend on me.
Thank your wife for me.  I know it is a lot to ask.  Let me know what she thinks and what to do with it next.

Warmest regards to you both,

Kathie

A few days after 9-11 we were on the phone talking about what that day was doing to Vietnam veterans. Reporters didn't seem to care much about any of it.

We tried to warn them. Most of us have been trying to raise the alarm bells ever since, but veterans over the age of 50 are 65% of the suicides. The rate of PTSD in them is 1 out of 3. 

Vietnam veterans were forgotten about in all of this but most Americans pretended that all they needed was a pin and parades to make up for the lost decades when they suffered in silence.

By the way, my husband was at the VA the planes hit the towers. Doesn't take much imagination to figure out what that was like for them there.

Vietnam Veterans Suffer from PTSD Many Years Later
NBC Bay Area
By Tom Sinkovitz
Published Dec 28, 2017

"What happened after 9/11? I didn't know. I fell apart," Aldrich said. "I, overnight -- became jittery, angry." Billy Aldrich

It had been the longest year of his life. Billy Aldrich was a door gunner on a huey gunship in Vietnam attached to the Army's 101st Airborne Division, the legendary "Screaming Eagles."

When Aldrich left Vietnam in June 1970, relief was not what he felt.

"Feeling really bad that I survived when guys in my company didn't," Aldrich said. "My helicopter got shot down and everyone got killed while I was on R&R."

The medals he came home with tell the story of a brave soldier. But there was no hero's welcome.

"I came back and left the Oakland Army Depot and took a bus over to the 7th Street bus station in Marin and there was like, protesters, like kids that we grew up (with), same age," Aldrich said. "And right away I realized, 'We're not gonna fit in. We're not cool.'"

So Aldrich did not talk about his experiences, felt ashamed of his role in the Vietnam disaster, and immersed himself in drugs and a career as a barber. Thousands of his colleagues shared his struggles.

"A lot of Vietnam veterans came home, had a terrible reception, were not sure how to feel about their service or felt strongly about their service or weren't around people that reflected their views," said Dr. Jesse Wade, a veteran's therapist. "And it became easier to just clam up and push through."
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Firefighters Helping Others Help Themselves Heal PTSD

Firefighters who’ve developed PTSD helping others learn to help themselves
Washington Post
Lynh Bui
December 28, 2017

“We’re showing up at everybody’s worst day, in a lot of cases. It’s not just part of our job — we want to do it. But how can we get to retirement and have a life after the fire service that’s not traumatized by what we did?”
Patrick Morrison

“You don’t come out perfect,” Eric Fessenden said, but you learn how to cope. A former Montgomery County firefighter, Fessenden attended the nation’s only in-patient facility designed to treat firefighters with PTSD. (Doug Kapustin/For The Washington Post)

After a 24-year career in the fire service, Eric Fessenden has a memory bank of the grisly calls he answered. He’s pulled bloated bodies out of rivers, treated victims of the D.C.-area Beltway Sniper attacks, and extracted the dead and the mangled from car wrecks.

Staying busy at work allowed the Montgomery County firefighter to put aside the emotional burdens of his job, but after an injury forced him to retire, he often found himself inexplicably anxious and angry. He woke up shaking in the middle of the night soaked in sweat. And the hikes he looked forward to each week with family members would end miserably when he inevitably snapped at them during the outings.

Fessenden, 48, thought that he suffered from post-traumatic stress. It wasn’t until recently he learned it was that — and more.

First responders witness trauma not only from everyday events such as car crashes and house fires, said Patrick Morrison, assistant general president for health, safety and medicine of the International Association of Fire ­Fighters. They’re also answering extraordinarily difficult mass-casualty calls, such as the Mandalay Bay shooting that killed 58 in Las Vegas, the Ghost Ship warehouse fire that killed 36 in Oakland, Calif., and devastating natural disasters such as Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.
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