Update: - Lee Rayburn for a full hour discussing the Keith Roberts obscenity - [Give the radio show's file some time to load, long show.]
Madison, Wisconsin — Navy Airman Keith Roberts (1969-71) sits in a federal penitentiary in Minnesota, serving a 48-month sentence since March, awaiting news from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit of his appeal for his conviction on federal wire fraud.
The honorably discharged veteran’s criminal conviction is based upon the U.S. Dept of Justice’s assertions, made through the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Stephen Biskupic, that Roberts lied about his relationship with and his actions pertaining to a fellow Navy airman who was crushed to death by a C-54 transport aircraft in a Feb. 1969 accident at a Naval airbase in Naples, Italy.
These alleged lies, Biskupic contends, were used to fabricate a claim for Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability benefits (granted in 1999), benefits that are by VA mandate electronically deposited in Roberts’ bank account, constituting wire fraud.
Several problems exist with Biskupic’s account by which he was able to secure an indictment and conviction at trial in 2006 in a case that brings to mind the infamous Georgia Thompson affair, also prosecuted by Biskupic.
- Roberts was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by some five different mental health professionals.
- Roberts had a parallel military career with the late Navy Airman, Gary Holland, that that would make it unlikely that Holland and Roberts were not at least friendly in their relationship.
- Roberts received a “Special Enlisted Personnel Performance Evaluation” (the military equivalent of a pat on the back for the then-young airman) two days after the death of Airman Holland for his role in the chaotic event.
- Roberts was serving on line duty, a military position guiding flights on the ground, at the time Holland was killed.
- Contrary to ordinary procedures, the only law enforcement agency (investigating the alleged crime) whose testimony was used in the Grand Jury proceedings securing the indictments (for mail fraud, later superseded by wire fraud) was the regional VA Inspector General’s office, not a professional law enforcement agency; and not the Postal Inspector’s office, the FBI or the U.S. Treasury Department that usually investigate mail and wire fraud crimes.
- Biskupic used an administrative denial of Roberts’ claim by an apparently vindictive VA as fact evidence at Roberts’ criminal trial, while the claim was and is still under adjudication at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC), per the Veterans Judicial Review Act. As Roberts’ attorney states in a CAVC brief: “If the CAVC rules in favor of Mr. Roberts, he will be in prison convicted of fraud for accepting benefits payments that he is fully and legally entitled to.”
Several other problems exist with Biskupic's prosecution, too numerous to mention here.
Roberts’ appeal will likely hinge upon interpretations of due process, lack of evidence or jurisdictional issues, but knowledgeable observers recognize that the dependence on the ideological make-up of the three-judge panel hearing the case renders the case a crapshoot for Roberts.
The innocent Georgia Thompson was, in a very real sense, lucky in the make-up of her appellate panel.
As for U.S. Atty Biskupic, who has drawn national condemnation for his appalling lack of prosecutorial discretion employed as the top law enforcement official in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, one can only hope that his reckless conduct in the Roberts affair ultimately ends with a judicial result similar to the Thompson case that ought to have provoked Biskupic’s resignation.
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