Key player in Navy Vets scam sentenced to five years in prison

[pinboy3niner]

Source: St. Petersburg Times

Blanca Contreras, 39, center, of Tampa reacts to her sentence as attorneys Walt Edwards and Mary Kay Tylee listen during her sentencing hearing in Cleveland on Wednesday. (PHIL LONG | Special to the Times)


By Kris Hundley, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Thursday, August 11, 2011


CLEVELAND — The first person to be held accountable for the multistate, multimillion-dollar scam known as the U.S. Navy Veterans Association was sentenced to five years in an Ohio prison on Wednesday.


Blanca Contreras, 39, a Tampa woman who falsified documents and cashed nearly $500,000 in checks from the fraudulent charity's accounts, dropped her head to the defense table and wept as the sentence was handed down by Judge Kathleen Ann Sutula in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.

...


Prior to sentencing, Contreras apologized for her role in the elaborate hoax, which raised nearly $100 million to help veterans but provided few charitable services. The judge called the Navy Vets "a criminal enterprise of mammoth proportions."

...


During the 40-minute hearing, Contreras' public defender, Walt Edwards, argued that his client, who only completed eighth grade, was manipulated by the Navy Vets' founder, who called himself Bobby Thompson.


"Thompson introduced her to people she'd seen on TV," Edwards said of Contreras, who attended political fundraisers with Thompson where she was introduced to President George W. Bush and his wife, Vice President Dick Cheney, Sen. John McCain and Republican strategist Karl Rove. "It was all sort of exciting to her."

...


Navy Veterans was a seemingly well-connected and wealthy nonprofit before being exposed as a fraud in a St. Petersburg Times series in March 2010. National and state offices were UPS mail drops, officers and members were nonexistent, and few donations were reaching military veterans. Thompson, who formed the group in 2002, ran it nearly single-handedly out of an Ybor City duplex.

...


http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/key-player-in-navy-vets-scam-to-be-sentenced-today/1185227

Treasurer of fake U.S. Navy Vets charity sentenced in Ohio

Source: Roanoke Times & World News

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Blanca Contreras was sentenced in Ohio for her involvement in the bogus U.S. Navy Veterans Association.

By Laurence Hammack


The treasurer of a bogus charity that collected millions under the guise of helping military veterans was sentenced to five years in prison Wednesday by an Ohio judge.


Blanca Contreras -- one of the few real people in an organization of made-up identities that was the U.S. Navy Veterans Association -- siphoned off more than $450,000 of the money raised by telephone solicitors working for the group, prosecutors said.


The nonprofit group is being investigated by federal authorities and about a half-dozen states, including Virginia.


Still at large is the group's leader, who went by the stolen identity of Bobby Thompson. Thompson was charged along with Contreras in October but so far has eluded arrest.



http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/295752





Bobby Thompson


A few of the previous DU posts on this:

Fake Charity Scammer And GOP Donor 'Bobby Thompson' Indicted
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=433&topic_id=482819

Bachman's snarky Navy Vets Charity Gave $$$ to MN's Public TV
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=160x39622

As the Navy Vets probe widens, Ohio prosecutors get first guilty plea
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4892777

National vets group founded by top Michele Bachmann donor is under investigation nationwide
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=160x39558



Kudos, most of all, the the St. Petersburg Times and its invetigative reporters, who did a yeoman's job in exposing the scam.

:toast:

[Angry Dragon]

1. bachmann and palin got money from him

He paid $10,000 to them

[pinboy3niner]

2. And cash also went to VA Republican pols

I included the VA story because it reported what THEIR GOP pols got:

Thompson contributed $67,500 to Virginia politicians, including Gov. Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, not long before his group pushed last year for a new state law that it would benefit from. Most of the contributions were later donated to charity after questions about the group arose, and the General Assembly has since repealed a law that would have exempted the U.S. Navy Vets from registration requirements for nonprofits.

What is really astounding is that this group managed to collect $100 million in donations. The money helps that slime, "Bobby Thompson," to remain a fugitive. But I really hope thay get that bastard!

[white cloud]

3. K&R

Thanks Putting togeteher and email now to send out.