Man Arrested for Fraud After Using Homeless Veterans

Deputies arrest Ormond man in veterans charity fraud

Daytona Beach News Journal

Seth Robbins
December 29, 2017

An Ormond Beach man has been accused of running a sham veterans charity after investigators said he scammed several local businesses that had provided services for a benefit golf tournament headlined by a former NFL player.

Christopher Blake, 46, faces a felony charge of organized scheme to defraud after he received donations and services under the guise of a charity called “Second Chance Veterans Foundation,” Volusia County sheriff’s detectives said.

Blake held a late October golf tournament at DeBary Golf and Country Club where he brought in a friend, retired NFL football player Gerald Riggs, to be the star. But the golf course, a sign maker, a hotel and even Riggs were left empty-handed after Blake paid them with bad checks for their services or tried to skirt payment entirely, according to a charging affidavit.

The website for Blake’s charity, which boasted of a Memorial Day raffle of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle that was said to have been donated by Bruce Rossmeyer’s Harley-Davidson, was also investigated. The raffle was to be held at Ace Cafe in Orlando, and the proceeds from it were to go to the area’s homeless veterans. But when Elmazi contacted the motorcycle dealership and the cafe, both owners said that the advertising was false.

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After Standoff Iraq Veteran Faces Charges

First question is, "Did he get diagnosed or was PTSD an assumption?" Next, it would be great to know if he was in treatment, on medication or plus using substances that have been known to cause "outbursts" like this. It is very rare for them to get this out of control, but it does happen.

Police: Wife in Ormond standoff recounts 'PTSD rage'
Man now faces additional charge of attempted murder
Daytona Beach News Journal
By Lyda Longa
Published: Thursday, September 17, 2015

An Ormond Beach father and husband was additionally charged Thursday with attempted second-degree murder after his wife described to police a horrific night of "PTSD rage."

Before barricading himself in his house for seven hours on Wednesday, Kevin Hamilton attacked his wife, threatened to kill his family and shoot himself in front of his crying 4-year-old son, police reports state.

Julie Hamilton recounted a night of violence and fear with Kevin Hamilton telling Ormond Beach police investigators that her spouse snapped after drinking rum and Fireball whiskey. The couple had been discussing a possible divorce or separation, but then began talking about salvaging their marriage, reports show.

The suspect, 36, suffers not only from post traumatic stress disorder from serving in the militiary in Iraq, but a neighbor who knows him well said Hamilton also suffered a brain injury in combat. Officials did not say in what branch of the military Kevin Hamilton served.
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Ormond Strong Army Wife Walks the Walk

Ormond Strong bridges gap between residents, troops
Daytona News Journal
By Jim Abbott
Published: Friday, July 17, 2015

Debbie Kruck, listens to the National Anthem outside the bait shop at the base of the Granada Bridge on Friday morning. Kruck and others plan to walk every day until the troops come home from war.
News-Journal/JIM TILLER

ORMOND BEACH — It’s early enough that the sun hasn’t yet baked the asphalt on the Granada Bridge when Debbie Kruck rallies her troops.

Dressed in camouflage fatigues, a 60-pound rucksack on her back, Kruck walks the winding boardwalk that leads from Cassen Park to the bridge with a growing band of friends. For more than 110 consecutive days, she has trudged the round-trip over the river to raise awareness for 200 troops from the Ormond Beach area serving in Afghanistan.

Kruck’s husband is among them. Her daily marches began as a solitary coping mechanism.

“We were married four years ago and he was deployed 12 days later,” she said. “That wasn’t a good experience.”

To cope, she donned soldier’s gear and started blazing a daily path — over the river, around Rockefeller Gardens Park and back across the quarter-mile span, arching 65 feet above the Halifax River. Along the way, she started Ormond Strong a nonprofit support group for local troops.
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White Marines rally behind Montford Point buddy

White Marines rally behind Montford Point buddy
By Deborah Circelli
EDUCATION WRITER
Published: Wednesday, September 26, 2012

ORMOND BEACH —While they couldn't train together more than 65 years ago because their skin is a different color, four local Marines wanted to be sure their fellow black Marine and friend received the recognition he deserved.

Christopher Royall, 89, of Ormond Beach will receive one of the last Congressional Gold Medals — the highest civilian honor — given to Montford Point Marines for breaking barriers as the first blacks to serve in the Marine Corps during World War II.

About 20,000 black Marine recruits were trained from 1942 to 1949 at the segregated Montford Point in North Carolina until the training base was deactivated after President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order ending segregation in the Armed Forces. Replica Congressional Gold Medals were placed over the heads of about 350 surviving Montford Marines at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in June and another 26 to family members. In total, close to 500 medals have been issued, some at private ceremonies for those who couldn't travel.
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Ormond Beach Marine gets stolen ring back

Marine gets back stolen ring
BY LYDA LONGA
STAFF WRITER
Daytona Beach News Journal
September 4, 2012

The one tangible object that 23-year-old Liam Riden had from his days as a Marine was the ring he received upon graduating from boot camp.

Riden lost the ring when a burglar broke into his Ormond Beach house during the Christmas holiday. He thought it was gone forever.

After eight months, though, two more nearby burglaries and an investigation by a detective who used to be a Marine, Riden was in for a surprise.

The December break-in left little reason for optimism. The burglar had left no fingerprints or any other evidence at Riden's Arroyo Parkway home, and the case went cold by January.

"My heart sank," said Riden, a sophomore at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who had served at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. "I got it (the ring) when I graduated from boot camp (at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island, S.C.), so it means a lot.

"Your boot camp experience is one you can share with all Marines, no matter where you serve."

Another burglary occurred Aug. 11 on Riden's street. Neighbors Jeff and Terri Wiseman had been feeding the burglary victim's cat while the homeowner was out of town, and Terri Wiseman reported the burglary, Ormond Beach investigator Donnie Brock said.

Investigator Tom Larsen -- also a former Marine -- learned that Wiseman had pawned two rings in February, Brock said.
"The fact that Tom Larsen was a Marine, this was very personal to him," Brock said of his colleague. "He went above and beyond to solve this case."
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Chain reaction hurts police officers before Bruce Rossmeyer Funeral

Accident reported before funeral for Harley-Davidson magnate Bruce Rossmeyer
Bruce Rossmeyer was killed in a motorcycle crash in Wyoming.

Ludmilla Lelis

Sentinel Staff Writer

12:18 PM EDT, August 4, 2009


A "chain-reaction" accident involving police officers was reported before the funeral for Harley-Davidson mogul Bruce Rossmeyer

Rossmeyer's funeral is today in Ormond Beach.

Television stations said there was a "chain-reaction" accident involving police officials. It didn't happen during the procession, an official told the Orlando Sentinel.

It was a police escort for family members who were heading to the funeral.

Two people were transported to Halifax Health Medical Center with non-threatening injuries, the TV stations reported.
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Accident reported before funeral for Harley-Davidson magnate Bruce Rossmeyer

Florida Highway Patrol high speed chase leads to shooting

Woman shot to death in Ormond Beach by four FHP troopers
UPDATED 2:52 p.m. A suicidal woman was shot to death by four state troopers this morning after a car chase that topped 100 mph, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Police sources said the black Mitsubishi driven by the woman killed today is the same description of a car belonging to a 35-year-old woman listed as missing out of Port Orange and armed, dangerous and suicidal.
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Police look for link after torso found near Ocala FL

Police look for Ormond link after torso found near Ocala

A human torso was found near the Ocala National Forest, and Ormond Beach detectives are comparing notes with another law enforcement agency to determine whether the case of a man found dismembered locally in December could be related to this latest mystery.

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Brian Christopher Wothers Not Guilty Due To PTSD

March 08, 2008

Vet using war stress defense found not guilty of murder

By LAUREN SONIS
Staff Writer

BUNNELL -- An Iraq war veteran was found not guilty by reason of insanity Friday after psychiatrists said he was having a flashback when he shot and killed a man.

Brian Christopher Wothers, 26, of Ormond Beach will live in a mental-health treatment facility until he is no longer deemed a threat to himself or others.
He was accused of killing 26-year-old Jeffrey Maxwell, a traveling construction worker from Denison, Texas, who was in Florida on an assignment. Maxwell's body was found May 26, 2006, in a wooded area near Old Kings Road in Palm Coast.

Wothers had a history of post-traumatic stress disorder related to his military duties when he saw piles of bodies and witnessed shootings, his attorneys said.

Prosecutors and Wothers' attorneys agreed to a trial by Circuit Judge Kim C. Hammond -- on charges of robbery and first-degree murder -- instead of by a jury.

"He's likely to suffer from that disorder for the foreseeable future," Hammond said.

Three adults hugged and kissed Wothers after the trial. They declined comment for this story.

"I'll call you," Wothers whispered to a woman as he left the courtroom to return to the Flagler County Inmate Facility, where he has been held pending the outcome of his case.

Wothers will stay there until the paperwork is filed to transport him. His attorneys said while it's not definite, Wothers will likely be moved to the North Florida Evaluation Treatment Center in Gainesville.

Attorney Zachary Stoumbos said in most similar cases, it can take five years before someone is considered safe enough to release.

Jeffrey Maxwell's family did not attend the trial, but they remained close to their phones on a snowy week in northeastern Texas.

His mother, Evelyn Maxwell, said she had hoped Wothers would be forced to stay in a treatment facility for at least 10 years and thought he should be punished.

"I'd prefer if he was in there a lot longer than five years," she said.

She said that while she supports capital punishment in general, she did not want to pursue the death penalty because of Wothers' mental-health problems. The mother said she wanted him to get help.

She later added, "A lot of (veterans) do need help when they come out."

When soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan and are accused of killings and other crimes, the justice system has been increasingly impelled to consider the effects of combat trauma in their offenses, according to a January New York Times report.
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Evelyn Maxwell must be an amazing woman. She lost her son but even after that she can see that Wothers was not in his right mind when it happened. How is it that she can understand PTSD but we have so many in the military who cannot?

Veteran sues VA so they will get it right for others

Cancer-fighting vet sues the VA after failing to ID tumor
Darryl E. Owens | Sentinel Staff Writer
March 1, 2008
An Ormond Beach veteran faces an uncertain future after doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Daytona Beach missed a cancerous tumor on his chest X-ray, a mistake for which military officials have apologized.

Ted Schrolucke, 63, who served in Germany for the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1967, has filed a $200,000 claim against the VA. The complaint says doctors at the William V. Chappell Jr. VA Outpatient Clinic failed to diagnose a late-stage mass in his right lung that had developed from a previous bout he had with colon cancer.

VA officials earlier this month admitted the error and offered its apologies in a memo it sent to Schrolucke.

But he wanted more than a concession and a mea culpa. He wanted to give other vets a warning that an incorrect diagnosis could happen to them. But the VA handles such matters internally, he was told, so he went public.

"Veterans are walking in there every day getting X-rays and sitting down with doctors and are told everything is OK," he said. "I want them to fix this."

Schrolucke's problems began in August 2005, when he turned to the VA to cover his medications and care until his wife could add him to her insurance plan. His own private policy had become too expensive, he said.

In his VA paperwork, he noted his 2002 colon-cancer diagnosis. Doctors took X-rays, and Schrolucke "walked out of there feeling cancer-free."

In March 2006, under his wife's insurance plan, he visited a non-VA doctor. A blood test suggested cancer, and a repeat of the test six weeks later proved more telling. Scans showed "a big tumor on my right lung," Schrolucke said.
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