Whitman man accused of using others’ veteran benefits to pay his mortgage
A former Whitman Police sergeant was arrested on Tuesday and accused of embezzling funds meant for disabled veterans in order to pay off his own mortgage, according to a federal indictment.
Glenn Pearson, 60, was arrested on Tuesday and arraigned in U.S. District Court on a total of 41 counts of wire fraud, making false statements, misappropriation by a fiduciary, and filing false tax returns.
According to the indictment, Pearson was appointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs as a fiduciary, or a person tasked with managing funds on behalf of incapable veterans, for eight people.
But rather than act on behalf of his veteran clients, prosecutors say Pearson used their government benefits for personal use. Pearson allegedly appropriated approximately $25,379 from one veteran’s benefits to pay down his own mortgage from December 2010 to March 2012, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors say he then prepared knowingly false accounting reports to the VA as part of a scheme to hide that misuse of funds.
“It was part of the scheme and artifice to defraud that Pearson enriched himself by improperly taking for himself monies issued by the VA, and other government entities, to the Beneficiaries for whom he was acting as Fiduciary,” the indictment reads.
In addition, as part of his tax preparation business, Pearson is accused of filing returns with false credits and fictitious deductions in an attempt to get his clients larger than earned refunds, according to prosecutors. He also is accused of filing false personal income tax returns for himself from 2010 to 2014.
Pearson had been a police officer for the Whitman Police Department from 1990 to 2001, according to the indictment. He was fired by the town in 2001, The Patriot Ledger reports, for violations of the police code of conduct, including improper arrest procedures, falsifying payrolls, inappropriate conduct, untruthfulness, and insubordination.
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