A Vietnam War veteran who spent 35 years pretending to be blind and bilked the federal government out of $1.3 million in disability payments was sentenced to a year in prison, prosecutors announced Friday.
Mike Rodolfo Blea of Colorado had a “minor” visual impairment, but beginning in 1983 he began to exaggerate how bad it was.
The Veterans Affairs Department began paying him 100% disability, and continued paying for decades. In reality, his disability was only about 10%, prosecutors said.
He even got eye exams outside of the VA and, with glasses, was able to see at 20/30 in one eye and 20/40 in the other — good enough to earn a state driver’s license and drive regularly “without any noticeable difficulties,” the government said.
“Justice may be blind, but Mr. Blea isn’t,” said U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn. “He will now have a year in federal prison to think about his actions and see a better way going forward.”
Blea originally told doctors he injured his eyes while lying on his back staring at the sky on a sunny day — or what they referred to as “solar burns.”
But by 1985 he claimed the injury was due to an explosion he survived in Vietnam.
Blea’s attorney insisted he was injured in Vietnam but his eyesight improved by 1983, and at that point he was remiss in not telling the VA to reduce his disability benefits.
Blea had pleaded for no jail time, saying he’s already 69 years old and has agreed to try to repay $1,273,180.44 to the VA.
Prosecutors, though, said he was in his early 30s when the scam began, and had held good jobs and frequently made more than $70,000 a year working construction and at Eastman Kodak.
“Defendant committed his crime mostly out of greed,” Mr. Dunn argued to the court.
He asked that Blea serve 21 months in prison.
The judge settled on 12 months — the number recommended by the probation department’s report.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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