Out of all the people one could steal money from, it takes a special kind of person to steal money from a disabled veteran.  But that is exactly what is happening, and in some cases, with the implied consent of the Department of Veterans Affairs.  The VA has a fiduciary program, in which the VA appoints a family member or even a stranger to manage the money for veterans that the VA considers to be disabled.  Hundreds of fiduciaries have been removed for misusing the veterans funds, yet the theft and fraud continue.  One scam, lasting over 10 years, misappropriated about $2 million.  Since 1998, thieves have stolen more than $14.7 million from disabled veterans.  But why does the VA allow this to continue?  Estate of Denial reports:

They survived the Nazis, the Viet Cong and the Taliban. But hundreds of mentally disabled veterans suffered new wounds when the country they served put their checkbooks in the hands of scoundrels.

Gambling addicts, psychiatric cases and convicted criminals are among the thieves who have been handed control of disabled veterans’ finances by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, a Houston Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers investigation has found.

For decades, theft and fraud have plagued the fiduciary program, in which the VA appoints a family member or a stranger to manage money for veterans the government considers incapacitated. The magnitude and pace of those thefts has increased, despite VA promises of reform. Three of the largest scams – ranging from about $900,000 to $2 million – each persisted 10 years or more before being discovered.

In the past six years, the VA has removed 467 fiduciaries for misuse of funds, but only a […]

Estate of Denial:  “Creditors just kept calling a permanently hospitalized San Antonio veteran about the delinquent payments on his 2006 Ford Focus, but Joe Cubillos, so disabled that he rarely left the veterans care center, no longer drove and knew nothing about a car.

An investigation revealed that his sister, Rosa Avila, and her daughter had used $180,000 of his money over five years — draining bank accounts, running up credit card debts and buying a new car, while providing Cubillos with pocket money of no more than “$20 at a time.”

Even after their 2011 convictions, the pair claimed they were innocent. Cubillos was generous and had always given away his money to family, they said.

Such swindles aren’t uncommon.

The Veterans Affairs Department‘s inspector general has repeatedly warned about a plague of fraud and theft in a national program that appoints family members and VA-approved fiduciaries to protect a whopping $3.1 billion in assets belonging to veterans the government considers too disabled to manage their own money.”