The scammers get the benefits while our deserving veterans are continuously asked for more documentation.
Via KOMO:
Darryl Lee Wright was a hero. Just not of the caliber he claimed to be.
Wright was a soldier, a national guardsman. He was in harm’s way in Iraq, pulled away from those he loved in the Cascade Mountains foothills east of Seattle and near Boise, Idaho.
What he wasn’t was a severely disabled veteran due the $751,400 in federal benefits he drew in the years since he left the Idaho National Guard. He lied about his service – claiming to have been wounded in combat — to steal from the government while living well in Snoqualmie.
Prosecutors found that Wright served in the suburb’s government, dated two women simultaneously and held down a steady job all while claiming he was incapacitated by wounds physical and psychological. He nearly duped a federal department into firing the first investigator to try to expose him; that woman’s efforts would go unrecognized for years before Wright’s lies collapsed.
For taking benefits he wasn’t owed, Wright, now 48, could spend the next five years in prison. That’s the sentence federal prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle to impose Thursday.
Wright previously pleaded guilty to two felony counts related to the scheme. His sister Karen Wright was sentenced to probation on Aug. 17 for her role in the long-running fraud; prosecutors claim Darryl Wright enlisted friends and family in Snoqualmie area to help in the scheme he led.
At base, Wright was caught telling a war story that wasn’t true.
Wright’s 2005 tour in Iraq was relatively uneventful, at least compared to the one he claimed to have endured.
On his return, Lt. Wright claimed is vehicle had been blow out from under him during a rocket attack near Kirkuk. In truth, the rocket landed 300 feet from his patrol; it caused little damage generally, and none at all to Wright.
HT: TAH