by Michael Leon (via mal contends)

Madison, Wisconsin —Vietnam-era Navy veteran Keith Roberts (1968-71) is an honorably discharged Navy airman who feels betrayed by his government, specifically the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the U.S. Dept of Justice, for its self-conscious and successful efforts to financially ruin and imprison him.

The Kentucky News-Enterprise has a piece this week on jailed Wisconsin veteran, Keith Roberts.

Sister takes up brother’s fight for freedom

By JOSHUA COFFMAN

RADCLIFF —Sally Harrod is crunching numbers that stretch beyond her job as an accountant. She oversees a legal fund for her brother in two legal cases regarding benefits he sought as a Navy veteran.

Keith Roberts, 60, is in a Minnesota federal prison, convicted of fraudulently receiving electronic funds from the department of Veterans Affairs. ...

Harrod, her family members and other veterans’ advocates ... fear the VA sought retribution against Roberts for seeking decades of back pay for post-traumatic stress disorder and criticizing the agency’s slow response to approve or deny his medical claims. ...

And, once it is all settled, she hopes her family can help veterans in similar situations.

“It’s unbelievable to all of them,” she said. “If they can do it to my brother, they can do it to anyone at any time.”

Today is the innocent and jailed Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts' birthday.

And Roberts (1968-71) is celebrating it back in the general population in a federal prison in Minnesota, as his wife reports that he has been released from solitary confinement, and is working on a supplemental brief, ordered to be filed with the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, while Roberts' parents, who are in their 80s and unable to travel to Minnesota, hope to see their son before they die.

Writes Mrs. Roberts in an e-mail:

An innocent and reportedly depressed Navy Airman Keith Roberts (1968-71) suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and serving a four-year sentence for wire fraud since March 2007, has for reasons unclear been moved and caged in solitary confinement in a federal prison in Minnesota for almost a month, according to the veteran's wife.

Roberts was targeted by the US Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2003-05, and became the central figure in an Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic of Wisconsin and top VA officials schemed to convict Roberts’ of fraudulently receiving VA benefits (by wire transfer as the VA requires).

Despite hostility from high quarters of the VA, Roberts may be again granted the benefits for which he is federal prison for receiving.

U.S. Atty Biskupic is the same U.S. Atty who infamously prosecuted an innocent Wisconsin woman in a political prosecution, and several innocent Wisconsin citizens for voter fraud in apparent service to the electoral needs of the national GOP.

The conduct of Stephen Biskupic, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin (2002 - present) has generated two prominent reactions.

As arguably the most controversial U.S. Atty in Wisconsin history, Biskupic has drawn both praise and angry denunciation for his prosecutions of:

- The proven-innocent Georgia Thompson (see also Biskupic tried to 'squeeze' Georgia Thompson)

- Several overturned “voter fraud” cases (see also Voter-Fraud Complaints by GOP Drove Dismissals)

"At the NEOCON-run VA, the first rule of PTSD treatment is to not talk politics (meaning anything that is negative about the war is TABOO) ...," writes Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired.

Hanafin's piece in Veterans Today shines a light on the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) that has become almost as politicized as the Dept. of Justice.

Nothing, not even the treatment of returning troops, is safe from the rightwing, pro-war-at-any-costs ideology of this administration.

Hanafin quotes from a VA "fact sheet" on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): “Families should minimize exposure to anxiety-arousing media related to the war. News programs often emphasize fearful content and frightening images to create a 'story.' Watching a lot of TV news programs, for example, can create needless distress. "

Vietnam-era veteran Keith Roberts who is serving 48 months on trumped-up charges of federal wire fraud has filed his brief before the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The case is entitled No. 07-1546 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. KEITH A. ROBERTS, Defendant-Appellant, (On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin).

The brief makes due process and insufficient-evidence arguments.

The listed arguments include:

I. The District Court Erred in Denying the Appellant's Motions to Dismiss, as the Court's Exercise of Jurisdiction Constituted a Denial of the Appellant's Right to Due Process, Due to the Pending Appeal Before the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

II. The Evidence Presented at Trial Was Insufficient to Sustain a Conviction for Wire Fraud.

- via MAL Contends  
On Monday, June 25, Vietnam-era veteran Keith Roberts who is serving 48 months on trumped-up charges of federal wire fraud received some good news.

In Roberts’ case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) (Roberts v. Secretary of the VA (05-2425)), Roberts had just been granted a motion to add to the record an important supplemental brief.

But Roberts is fighting his legal battle not just against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), but also the U.S. Department of Justice in two different courts and two different cases simultaneously on the same factual and legal dispute.

On Friday, June 29, Roberts is filing his criminal brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (U.S. v. Roberts, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Docket 05-CR-118).

-

by Michael Leon, via MAL Contends

Madison, Wisconsin—In this Karl Rove/Dick Cheney age of politics when the governmental machinery is so politicized that Richard Nixon seems a progressive reformist by comparison, it’s not surprising to find the United States Department of Justice ravaging a Vietnam-era veteran diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

But many veterans charge the peculiar case of US v. Roberts is a disgraceful miscarriage of justice even by the contemporary swift-boating standards of the Bush administration.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

In June of 1999, Airman Keith Roberts (1968-71) was granted a disability rating by the US Veterans Administration (VA) after a 12-year, excruciating benefits claim process to which the honorably discharged American veteran from the northern town of Gillett, Wisconsin was subjected.

Roberts had been diagnosed with (PTSD) years after he witnessed a fellow airman killed in a gruesome C-54 aircraft crushing death of fellow Airman Gary Holland in 1969 while on “line duty” at a Naval Air Facility in Naples, Italy, and later in the same year was assaulted by the Navy Shore Patrol and forcefully hospitalized.

Roberts believed that negligence caused Holland’s death and that the Navy then covered it up, blaming the dead rookie Holland who could not defend himself.

- via MAL Contends

The Vietnam-era airman who witnessed the death of a colleague killed in a gruesome C-54 aircraft accident in 1969 at a Naval Air Facility in Naples, Italy, and was convicted of fabricating his role at the death scene in seeking VA disability benefits is appealing his conviction.

Keith RobertsKeith Roberts' appeal brief is due June 29 before the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The government brief is due July 30.

Roberts' reply brief is due August 13. Oral arguments are scheduled at the Court's convenience. The case number is: U.S. v. Roberts, E.D. of Wisconsin federal court, docket 05-CR-118. U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, 07-1546.

Despite a mountain of evidence corroborating Roberts’ narrative of events, US Atty Stephen Biskupic’s office was able to convince a jury that Roberts committed wire fraud, using the same federal magistrate to whom wrongly convicted state worker Georgia Thompson's case was assigned.