VA Director Connie S. Wilkinson Sentenced to Federal Prison for Theft

[Robbien]

Source: Imperial Valley News

Tucson, Arizona - Connie S. Wilkinson, 54, of Tucson, Ariz., was sentenced here Monday by U.S. District Judge David C. Bury to 27 months in federal prison, and ordered to pay restitution of $365,816 to the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System. Wilkinson pleaded guilty on October 2, 2008 to Theft of Public Money, Wire Fraud and Mail Fraud.

Wilkinson was the Clinical Director of Education and Training at Southern Arizona Veteran's Affairs Heath Care System (VA) in Tucson, Arizona, between 1999 and 2006, and was issued a government credit card to pay for legitimate expenses in connection with her position. Through various schemes, Wilkinson stole $365,816 in government funds from the VA.

. . .

Wilkinson also used her government credit card to make internet purchases of $47,750 in Target and Amazon gift cards which she used for personal purchases such as jewelry, clothing, toys, electronics and home goods. Finally, she used her VA credit card to charge the VA for $244,380 in fictitious goods and services, payable to the fictitious business account controlled by defendant. Wilkinson then spent the money on apparel, jewelry, personal housing, home improvements and her children's educational expenses.

Wilkinson resigned from the VA in April 2006. She has paid $40,230 towards restitution, and Judge Bury has ordered her to pay the remaining $325,585 upon her release from prison.

Read more: http://www.imperialvalleynews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5911&Itemid=1

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That's one state down, now the other 49 states need to start taking a good look at the employee theft by credit card use in their VA departments.

[Terran]

1. I just don't understand

how a person with that level of expertise, education and training (I'm assuming that), having achieved a high and respected and useful position which is no doubt well paid, sets out to commit premeditated grand larceny and fraud, putting all that at risk. She must be mentally ill.

[unhappycamper]

2. Or a Republican. n/t

[Terran]

3. Well, yah

I was trying not to state the obvious. :toast:

[unhappycamper]

4. :lol:

Let it out! You'll feel better.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. For some, no amount of money is enough.

[jmowreader]

9. It happens in the private sector, too

A few weeks ago I was sitting in Battle Creek, Michigan, talking to another driver from my company, when he told me this tale of whoa about his last fleet manager.

(Tale of whoa: one you hear and go "Whoa! Nobody is really that stupid.")

In the trucking industry we have a document called a Comchek. If you're out on the road and you need a new tire or something and the tire shop won't accept your Comdata card, you can use these to pay for it. When you write one, you call your dispatcher and get an authorization number, without which the Comchek is no good. This also used to be how we got paid, but now we either have Direct Deposit or we use our Comdata cards as ATM cards--that's one of its functions.

The other driver told me he used to have this great, fantastic, truly caring fleet manager. We will call him Joe because we have to call him something. Anyway, one day he called the company and was told Sam is now his fleet manager. Joe, it seems, found a bug in the Comchek authorization number generator that allowed him to authorize Comcheks without it going upstairs to finance...and wrote himself $37,000 worth of them before he got caught.

This would have been the perfect crime except that this very intelligent man made an amateur mistake: he cashed all of them at the same truck stop, and the nice young lady behind the counter noticed he always came to the truck stop in a car. Since Comcheks are designed to pay TRUCKING expenses, she figured something was wrong here and dialed the company.

[DollyM]

6. meanwhile veterans are getting shoddy care because of the expense . . .

My husband had to use VA as well as my father. You have to fight them for every procedure, every decent medication, even good bandages! They killed my elderly father after sending him home too soon, because in their words "we need the bed space." They sent him home without even a discharge plan or plan of care or medications. I had to run down his medications and it took them nearly 2 weeks to send them. He died three weeks later at home.
My husband is diabetic and was hospitalize 5 times between 06 and 07 for the same infection in his foot. They were too cheap to have him see a specialist so they kept putting him back in the hospital, treating him with cheap antibiotics and releasing him. He nearly lost his foot.
This is the same hospital in Illinois that had their surgery unit shut down after a number of patient deaths. Come to find out that the surgeon they hired had his licenses suspended in another state and was responsible for some "suspicious" deaths in another state. VA didn't bother to check his record, probably just got him cheap with no questions asked.
VA is ripe for corruption because the whole thing is based upon how cheap of care they can give. It is not like the Veterans will complain, they are trained to say "yes sir" and accept whatever treatment they get.

[snort]

8. My wife has had

nothing but the very best of care through the local VA hospital. Perhaps consistency in patient care is their biggest challenge.

[Born_A_Truman]

7. She was the sister of Sherri Rasmussen

Loretta Rasmussen, mother of 1986 murder victim Sherri Rasmussen, was dealt another blow today when her other daughter, Connie Sue Wilkinson, was sentenced to 27 months in prison for swindling. Sherri Rasmussen's murder case has resurfaced as prosecutors recently charged a veteran LAPD detective with the crime.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/crime/297187.php