Vet missing $600,000 in disability benefits

Vet missing $600,000 in disability benefits

VA had picked fiduciary in 1995.
By Lise Olsen, lise.olsen@chron.com

Updated 01:20 a.m., Monday, January 9, 2012

. Erminia Molina, the daughter and care taker of World War II veteran jesus C. Garcia who is seated in the background, holds some of the documents she and her attorneys have filed in an effort to get answers about her father's VA benefits have been manager for the last 15 years when a lawyer from San Antonio was named as his fiduciary in 1995.


HOUSTON — Jesus C. Garcia is 90 years old, and his memories of serving as an Army infantryman in World War II are as time worn as the shrapnel still lodged in his head from his battle wounds.
And though the American war vet receives disability benefits for his service and his sacrifice, almost half of that money from the last 15 years remains unaccounted for — routed through a stranger selected by the very agency that pays Garcia.

Deemed incapable of managing his own money by the Department of Veterans Affairs, his daughter Erminia Molina serves as her father's guardian by the appointment of a judge in their hometown of Laredo. But a professional fiduciary picked by the VA regional office in Houston has overseen his assets since 1995.

Molina has been unable to find out what happened to about $600,000 in benefits that Garcia never received from the San Antonio attorney who serves as fiduciary, court records and interviews show.

Across the United States, approximately 122,271 veterans have been judged “incompetent” to manage their funds. Their $3.3 billion in assets are handled by VA-selected fiduciaries: family, friends or strangers screened by the government, according to information the VA provided to the Houston Chronicle. In Texas, 8,261 veterans' assets are managed by fiduciaries, who can be paid 4 percent of the benefits.

Garcia and his wife, Maria, currently make ends meet with an allowance of $1,500 — which is $1,900 shy of his $3,400 monthly benefit, veterans court records say. It's unclear what's happened to the rest of the benefits Garcia and his wife formerly received directly, since both bank statements and accountings have not been made available to Garcia.

“I need answers to all my questions and would appreciate if someone would contact me,” Molina, Garcia's daughter, wrote in one of many written claims she made to the VA dated April 25, 2007. “I need to know why the attorney ... is hoarding my father's money.”

Despite those claims and a related Veterans Court of Appeals lawsuit, Molina's requests have prompted only partial responses, according to interviews and records.

Raul Villarreal, the VA fiduciary, did not respond to repeated attempts by the Chronicle to reach him. VA officials said they could not comment.

Molina's concerns about her father's money began after she had problems getting money to pay for emergency day care and medicine for her father. Last year, when no one responded to requests for money to pay for prescriptions for her father's worsening lung problems, Molina said she pawned her own jewelry to buy medicine which costs $500 a month.

Other requests for utility bills and property taxes went unanswered, and her parents fell behind on crucial bills, copies of her complaints show.

Molina finally received partial reimbursement for the medications this summer after she found a lawyer, Katrina Eagle, a San Diego, Calif.-based attorney specializing in veterans issues who helped her appeal her father's case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in Washington, D.C.

“It took literally an act of God for that monthly expense to be paid,” said Molina, who said she went to court to improve accountability for her father and for others.

“It's not only my father. It's a lot of veterans out there that they're holding on to their money. What I'm doing is fighting for justice.”

But as of this month, neither Molina nor her lawyer has received complete accountings, which should be on file at the Houston VA office.

“This case is troubling,” Eagle said in an interview. “We don't know where all the money is and we're still trying to find it.”

The VA fiduciary, Villarreal, first began managing Garcia's assets in 1995 after a field investigator sent by the VA in Houston decreed that his wife, Maria, who is also elderly and suffers heart problems, should no longer serve as her husband's money manager due to dementia. Molina disputes the finding as a “false accusation” unsupported by medical evidence, according to an October 2009 complaint.

VA fiduciaries are supposed to communicate with veterans, VA officials told the Chronicle. However, until Molina insisted on a meeting in 2010 to discuss her father's accounts and annual allowance, Garcia had never met his fiduciary. After the meeting, no one sent copies of requested accountings and bank statements.

“They don't provide accountings to ANY of their veterans,” said Eagle, who represents Garcia and many other veterans. “That's my experience with all of (my) veterans claims — there is not one veteran who receives any information about their VA money.”

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