Va New Fugitive Felon Program

[bigmuny]

Recently I learned I had a warrant out of Florida. I had never been arrested or even had a ticket there or anywhere for that matter, so I was surprised when I received a letter from the VA stating they would be cutting off my benefits unless I could show the warrant had been cleared but that they would still charge me an overpayment beginning from the date the warrant was placed against me which was 06-12-2006 until the date the warrant was cleared 12-14-07, so the amount will be about $70,000 according to the amount I receive every month. This also stops medical, pharmacy, insurance and any other benefit one may receive from the VA.

I began researching this new law the "FFP" (Fugitive Felon Program) under Section 505 of Public Law 107-103, that has taken effect in 2001 across the board for all Federal agencies, including Food Stamps, SS, SSI and so on. To date the Fed Gov. states they are saving hundreds of millions of dollars by cutting benefits.

Searching the Veteran's Law it states the only way the VA can stop one's benefits based on a warrant as such is if that Veteran is considered a "Fugitive Felon" ... which is one who knows they have a warrant, who is actively fleeing from the Law, trying to hide their whereabouts and such. Now the VA doesn't distinguish the precedent set by the Law, whether it be the Social Security ALJ, or Federal District Courts, etc...they state that even if a person doesn't know they have a warrant against them and are not trying to hide or flee from justice doesn't matter, they will still hold them accountable for the overpayment even if they get the warrant cleared. The VA Committee on Waivers CAN waive the overpayment based on a number of factors the most popular being hardship, and in this case it would most definately be hardship...not many people I know have $70K laying around in the bank.

Now since I have gotten the warrant cleared, the VA will reinstate my disability payments and I did this all within 2 weeks of learning that I had a warrant so I didn't get to the automatic cut-off date of 60 days the VA gives one to appeal the decision or request a hearing. Now all I have to contend with is the matter of overpayment, so what I have to prove is that I wasn't a Fugitive Felon as described by Blacks Law dictionary. The strongest defense is how could one be a Fugitive Felon if they don't even know they have a warrant against them to begin with??? Not including the fact of leaving a Forwarding Address with the Post Office, having Direct Deposit, Voter's Registration, Credit Cards and probably in every computer system from here to Mars, so I could have been located at any time had Law Enforcement wanted me. Also, the fact I have never received any notices in the mail or telephone calls or personal visits by Law Enforcement. This should work well in my defense as all the decisions I have read from the BVA and other Courts have decided in favor of the Veteran, unless of course they are as described by the Law a Fugitive Felon.

Why the VA puts in that extra phrase in their description of a Fugitive Felon "even if the Veteran has a Warrant and doesn't know about it"..when all the other Agencies use the exact wording under Blacks Law. This is the contradiction between VA Policy and Law and Law prevails but who wants to wait to have to appeal their case in the 2 or 3 years it takes to run the course of an appeal???

This program, the FFP "Fugitive Felon Program".. is handled by the OIG of the VA..which is the Office of Inspector General. They match records with law enforcement and when they find someone with a warrant, regardless of the events, they notify the local Law Enforcement and if they want to pick them up they can, however these guys are Special Agents with arrest powers also, they are the one's who set out in front of your home or watch you if they believe you are trying to defraud the VA by claiming benefits you aren't really entitled to, for instance watching a Veteran at the VA come in on a cane or walker and then watch them when they leave without the cane or walker, they will do this you know. They will even set out in front of the homes...and it goes on and on...What happens when the OIG finds out the Vet has a warrant they put the Veteran's name in a program called the VistA program..this in turn flags the VA patient files to notify the VA Police or their Supervisor of the Veteran's status and that they have a warrant. What will probably happen is the VA Police will notify the local law enforcement who will come and initiate an arrest on the premises. Now all of this is fine and dandy but believe it or not there are many people who have a warrant for whatever reason that they have no knowledge of whatsoever...could be a neighbor swore out a charge against you or you have failed to pay a fine or ticket or didn't show up to court for jury duty...any number of things that can start this process..This whole program is punitive in nature toward those Veterans who are Law abiding citizens but have this warrant against them for whatever reason...now if one has never been arrested how is one to know anything. This is where the system needs to be overhauled, in my opinion and yours too if you ever get caught up in this nightmare.

I'm bringing this to everyone's attention for information only, if you ever have something like this happen to you then you can be aware..and those Veteran's who offer advice on benefits will research this to understand it a little bit better..

I would like to hear if anyone else has had a similiar problem and what they did to correct it??

[Ricky]

Just a couple of things about this post and poster before we go beating up the VA on this issue. Now you guys know me and my true feelings about the VA but they do do some things in accordance with the law. Hell I will even go as far as saying they are right a couple times a year:

First this is the definition the VA uses to implement this program:

A fugitive felon is defined as a person who is:

a. Fleeing to avoid custody or confinement after conviction for an offense which is a felony under the laws of the place from which the person is fleeing, or for an attempt to commit such an offense; and/or

b. Fleeing to avoid prosecution for an offense or an attempt to commit an offense which is a felony; and/or

c. Violating a condition of probation or parole imposed for committing a felony under Federal or State law.

Now this is what the VA Debt Management Manual says about it:

A fugitive felon is defined as a person who flees to avoid

arrest, prosecution, and/or imprisonment following conviction of a felony under the laws of the place from which the person flees.person who has an outstanding warrant for a felony offense, regardless of whether that person is literally “fleeing.” A “felony” for this purpose also includes certain offenses characterized as “high misdemeanors” under state laws, which would be felony offenses under Federal laws.

I did not see any where it states even "if the person is not aware of the warrant". However, if there is such wording somewhere then that is necessary because how many times have you seen a criminal being stopped and when asked about warrants they reply "I did not know there was a warrant for my arrest officer Hadit!!! Now the VA would not be able to implement the program if that was not clear. How could they if once caught the vet says "hey you can not take my money, jez I did not even know they had a warrant for me"' See what I mean. The clarifaction about fleeing is also necessary cause the the literal meaning of fleeing means moving from one place to another and that is not the case with STATE felony fugitive status. They simply have to prove to a JUDGE that they have exhausted all means to find a person in which a felony arrest warrant has been issued. However, the suspect may just be hiding at his mother's house down the street from his usual place of residence. However, in order to obtain a federal fugitive arrest from a FEDERAL JUDGE you must prove that interstate flight (movement from one state to another) has occured.

Now in defense of the VA. Th VA is not the one who places a person into a fugitive status. It is a law enforcement agency either state or federal. In either case a fugitive arrest warrant is issued by a JUDGE. The VA is only acting on information provided by a law enforcement agency.

I keep placing the word JUDGE in caps here. This is because we have to remember arrest warrants are issued by JUDGES. When they are approached with a felony issue to take away a persons liberty it is a serious issue and not a simple oh well type situation as inferred by the poster. Your neighbor can not appear before a JUDGE and claim you comitted some felony crime and have him issue an arrest warrant!!!!! A law enforcement officer does this and I assure you that before he swears before a JUDGE and testifys to have your liberty removed he has done a very complete investigation which could have taken months not to mention years. It ain't a simple case of Mary said she saw you kill John so Detective Hadit trots off to the JUDGE swears and testifys to the information obtained from Mary and the JUDGE issues the warrant. Where's the PC the JUDGE WILL demand???? none there my friends. So you see it is not a simple matter or process. Without the PC which identifies that the crime at hand has been commited and the person named in the testimony/warrant is the person that comitted the crime you ain't gonna walk away smiling cause the JUDGE will beat the hell out of you (trust me I know from experience).

The stolen id theory mentioned below ain't gonna work either. For I assure you before John (from story above) is named in the sworn testimony to a JUDGE you can betcha many, many attempts have been made to find John. Now if someone stole your id and comitted a crime you would know it. The investigator would be in touch with many, many neighbors, friends and kin folk who would know where John is if John is not a criminal.

Just a few things to ponder when reading this post. Something just ain't right here. Bottom line is VA did nothing wrong as they did not issue the warrant, nor did they declare the poster a fugitive. They just simply acted in accordance with the law.

My recommendation to the poster is that the repayment issue is the least of his/her worries. I would be looking for criminal legal assistance very, very fast.

There is also a lot of missing info here such as how was the warrant "cleared". Now I know the definition of cleared and how warrants are actually cleared. Also what was the warrant for? Just a couple of questions to make you think. I hope all works out well for the poster and all of the VA issues get cleared up to his advantage but as I said above the poster needs to run not walk to a very very good criminal attorney.

[timetowinarace]

Just a couple of things about this post and poster before we go beating up the VA on this issue. Now you guys know me and my true feelings about the VA but they do do some things in accordance with the law. Hell I will even go as far as saying they are right a couple times a year:

First this is the definition the VA uses to implement this program:

A fugitive felon is defined as a person who is:

a. Fleeing to avoid custody or confinement after conviction for an offense which is a felony under the laws of the place from which the person is fleeing, or for an attempt to commit such an offense; and/or

b. Fleeing to avoid prosecution for an offense or an attempt to commit an offense which is a felony; and/or

c. Violating a condition of probation or parole imposed for committing a felony under Federal or State law.

Now this is what the VA Debt Management Manual says about it:

A fugitive felon is defined as a person who flees to avoid

arrest, prosecution, and/or imprisonment following conviction of a felony under the laws of the place from which the person flees.person who has an outstanding warrant for a felony offense, regardless of whether that person is literally “fleeing.” A “felony” for this purpose also includes certain offenses characterized as “high misdemeanors” under state laws, which would be felony offenses under Federal laws.

I did not see any where it states even "if the person is not aware of the warrant". However, if there is such wording somewhere then that is necessary because how many times have you seen a criminal being stopped and when asked about warrants they reply "I did not know there was a warrant for my arrest officer Hadit!!! Now the VA would not be able to implement the program if that was not clear. How could they if once caught the vet says "hey you can not take my money, jez I did not even know they had a warrant for me"' See what I mean. The clarifaction about fleeing is also necessary cause the the literal meaning of fleeing means moving from one place to another and that is not the case with STATE felony fugitive status. They simply have to prove to a JUDGE that they have exhausted all means to find a person in which a felony arrest warrant has been issued. However, the suspect may just be hiding at his mother's house down the street from his usual place of residence. However, in order to obtain a federal fugitive arrest from a FEDERAL JUDGE you must prove that interstate flight (movement from one state to another) has occured.

Now in defense of the VA. Th VA is not the one who places a person into a fugitive status. It is a law enforcement agency either state or federal. In either case a fugitive arrest warrant is issued by a JUDGE. The VA is only acting on information provided by a law enforcement agency.

I keep placing the word JUDGE in caps here. This is because we have to remember arrest warrants are issued by JUDGES. When they are approached with a felony issue to take away a persons liberty it is a serious issue and not a simple oh well type situation as inferred by the poster. Your neighbor can not appear before a JUDGE and claim you comitted some felony crime and have him issue an arrest warrant!!!!! A law enforcement officer does this and I assure you that before he swears before a JUDGE and testifys to have your liberty removed he has done a very complete investigation which could have taken months not to mention years. It ain't a simple case of Mary said she saw you kill John so Detective Hadit trots off to the JUDGE swears and testifys to the information obtained from Mary and the JUDGE issues the warrant. Where's the PC the JUDGE WILL demand???? none there my friends. So you see it is not a simple matter or process. Without the PC which identifies that the crime at hand has been commited and the person named in the testimony/warrant is the person that comitted the crime you ain't gonna walk away smiling cause the JUDGE will beat the hell out of you (trust me I know from experience).

The stolen id theory mentioned below ain't gonna work either. For I assure you before John (from story above) is named in the sworn testimony to a JUDGE you can betcha many, many attempts have been made to find John. Now if someone stole your id and comitted a crime you would know it. The investigator would be in touch with many, many neighbors, friends and kin folk who would know where John is if John is not a criminal.

Just a few things to ponder when reading this post. Something just ain't right here. Bottom line is VA did nothing wrong as they did not issue the warrant, nor did they declare the poster a fugitive. They just simply acted in accordance with the law.

My recommendation to the poster is that the repayment issue is the least of his/her worries. I would be looking for criminal legal assistance very, very fast.

There is also a lot of missing info here such as how was the warrant "cleared". Now I know the definition of cleared and how warrants are actually cleared. Also what was the warrant for? Just a couple of questions to make you think. I hope all works out well for the poster and all of the VA issues get cleared up to his advantage but as I said above the poster needs to run not walk to a very very good criminal attorney.

I disagree with much of your post. Even your posted VA definitions of Fugitive Felon departs from one another. Why does the VA Debt Management Manual add it's own imbelishments to the definition? No where in the origanal definition does it use the word warrent. The original definition says, (b. Fleeing to avoid prosecution for an offense or an attempt to commit an offense which is a felony) contrasted by ( regardless of whether that person is literally “fleeing.”) in the debt managment manual. The original definition only uses the word felony contrasted by (A "felony” for this purpose also includes certain offenses characterized as “high misdemeanors” under state laws) in the manual. VA Debt Management has no right to imbelish on legal definitions. I believe you are wrong, the VA is making the decisions on who is a fugitive felon. Otherwize, they would not need a definition at all.

Also, the feds do not need these laws to sieze assets, stop payments and such. If they want somebody the JUDGE can also do this for them.

This person did not ask for legal advice for criminal case. He posted information on VA procedure that is usefull. He obviously has researched the subject. Nobody has asked you about your personal history or skeletons and the information is not necissary for the subject. The "missing" information seems to be on a need to know basis. We don't need to know.

Time

Edited December 30, 2007 by timetowinarace

[Pete53]

Warrants can and are often issued without the person's accused knowledge. They usually find out when stopped for a traffic citation.

This idea that a person who has a warrant can loose their benefits is outrageous.

[Stretch]

I haven't ever heard or read of this situation happening to a Veteran. I thought that this might be a first. At least this should have been in the newspapers. Speculations of, this could happen and that could happen, just leaves me wondering.

It could just be that the MF (mysterious force), is back.

[Ricky]

I disagree with much of your post. Even your posted VA definitions of Fugitive Felon departs from one another. Why does the VA Debt Management Manual add it's own imbelishments to the definition? No where in the origanal definition does it use the word warrent. The original definition says, (b. Fleeing to avoid prosecution for an offense or an attempt to commit an offense which is a felony) contrasted by ( regardless of whether that person is literally “fleeing.”) in the debt managment manual. The original definition only uses the word felony contrasted by (A "felony” for this purpose also includes certain offenses characterized as “high misdemeanors” under state laws) in the manual. VA Debt Management has no right to imbelish on legal definitions. I believe you are wrong, the VA is making the decisions on who is a fugitive felon. Otherwize, they would not need a definition at all.

Also, the feds do not need these laws to sieze assets, stop payments and such. If they want somebody the JUDGE can also do this for them.

This person did not ask for legal advice for criminal case. He posted information on VA procedure that is usefull. He obviously has researched the subject. Nobody has asked you about your personal history or skeletons and the information is not necissary for the subject. The "missing" information seems to be on a need to know basis. We don't need to know.

Time

This person did not ask for legal advice for criminal case. He posted information on VA procedure that is usefull. He obviously has researched the subject. Nobody has asked you about your personal history or skeletons and the information is not necissary for the subject. The "missing" information seems to be on a need to know basis. We don't need to know

Time just was providing more information on the OP's topic to explain why VA does what VA does in this area my dear friend. Is that not why this site exists? When providing fact type information to all of Hadit members then it must be based on factual information. My ole skeletons are pretty clean so even if you did get a peek if wouldn't hurt your eyes. However, if ya don't want the total explanation or my input on such then just hit the ole ingore button and be done with it.

Why does the VA Debt Management Manual add it's own imbelishments to the definition

No legal definitions have been changed as they are standard throughout the country. However, there are many differences in the U.S Code and Floridia, Georgia etc... state codes. Therefore, federal agencies that implement programs based upon state laws must know and understand the difference between the state requirements and the federal requirements. Yes you are right they do not need a definition to enforce the program. But I betcha if a local yocal law enforcement agency in po dunk county was trying to get your benefits zapped just to assist their efforts you would wanna see a clear cut definition in the federal manual that was going to allow that to happen.

The original definition only uses the word felony contrasted by (A felony" for this purpose also includes certain offenses characterized as high misdemeanors” under state laws) in the manual.

Once again veterans benefits are a federal program and not state controlled. US Code provides that certain offenses characterized as high misdemeanors under state laws are in fact felony charges within the US Code.

We could go on and on all night over this but once again if you are going to post something that could and does affect all veterans and it is persented as fact then all facts must be presented. We should not, and the controllers of this board do not, allow someone new to jump on throw out a general situation as fact and then sit back and watch the fireworks. As you can see just in the posts between you and I that seems to be happening (as it seems the facts of the programs appear to upset you) so I will wrap this up by saying when it comes to a program such as this that encompasses both state and federal situations which has an affect on a veterans benefits (a federal program) then we must know the VA, a federal government agency, will react to it. Especially if it some day could affect my or your benefits. Bottom line is that if a situation arises someday in which a state organization has done something (anything) to cause you to lose your benefits just make sure you research your state requirements then bounce them off the US Code to make sure all is kosher.

P.S. I did not provide "legal advice" for I am not an attorney. I just gave an opinion of my view of his situation. Stretch I agree with you buddy!

[Ricky]

Stretch - you are correct. The states use the program to recoup billions of dollars spent in the welfare programs (which have a federal spin to them.). SSA programs are next in line.

I would guess that 99.7555555 percent of us veterans are boy or girl enough, that if we did something, we would have what it takes to stand up to the piper. That is why we are America's hereros! :D