Former Marine faces 21 years for stealing combat veteran's story of valor

[TomSea]

Former Marine faces 21 years for stealing combat veteran's story of valor

A former Marine who stole a combat veteran’s story of valor and scammed the government out of a house and benefits is facing 21 years in jail for his crimes, WFAA reported.

ADVERTISEMENT

The family of Casey Owens, a Marine who lost both of his legs in 2004 when his Humvee hit an anti-tank mine and then killed himself after a decade of pain and fighting the Veterans Administration, tells the station that Brandon Blackstone is no hero for what he did.

“It took my breath away that someone would do something like that,” his sister Lezleigh Owens Kleibrink of Trophy Club, Texas, said.

Blackstone, of Arlington, recently pleaded guilty to defrauding the government. He faces sentencing in February.

Blackstone and Owens were in the same unit in Iraq.

His deception unraveled when he showed a picture of the mangled Humvee to one of Owens’ Marine buddies who witnessed the explosion.

Continued: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/27/former-marine-faces-21-years-for-stealing-combat-veterans-story-valor.html (WFAA via Fox)

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Scumbag.  Hope he meets some new "friends" in prison.

[240B]

I don't understand how he got away with this. To get disability, you have to be checked, verified, and formally diagnosed by at least one doctor if not more than one. And then, once you submit your application for disability the VA will research your service record to verify where you served, in what capacity, and for how long. He must have gone through a different system than the one I know. You could not do this at the VA that I go to. It simply wouldn't work.


Lying about a purple heart is one of the worst things a soldier can do. And it is so easily debunked because all awards are listed on your DD214. Unless he forged that too. I don't know. It is a weird story. I can't see how he got away with it for ten years.


And it is crazy to try to fool other soldiers with stolen valor. Normally they can see right through it in a second if you try to lie to them.


Well, his big lie finally caught up with him, as it always does.