Lee county woman accused of cashing dead mom’s VA benefits getting over $300,000

A Lee County woman is accused of illegally cashing over $300,000 of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits over the course of 19 years that was meant for her mother, who died in November 2005.

A charge that Kevin Boyd, the post commander for American Legion Post #38, called a travesty.

“She should be in jail because that’s a travesty, because a lot of those veterans depend on that money just to survive. So, I’m speechless,” Boyd said. “When I guess somebody hears this, and they’re trying to get normalized, and they hear somebody robbing $300,000 from their own mother, and she died, and taking it from other veterans that may need it, and you know, then they wonder why this person isn’t getting this care, or they don’t have enough money so that they can get that, this is why.”

As someone who is a veteran and serves other veterans, this news was upsetting.

“That is theft and deception because she knew what she was doing,” Boyd said.

Laurie Ann Roszelle appeared in Federal Court before a judge in Lee County facing one count of Wire Fraud. Roszelle’s father passed away in 1996 and under the VA’s Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) program, monthly payments are given to the surviving spouse, children, and parents of a veteran who died in the line of duty or from a service-connected disability.

Surviving children can only receive benefits if they are under the age of 18, under the age of 23 and attending an educational institution, or became totally disabled before reaching the age of 18.

Roszelle did not fit those qualifications and her indictment said she went as far as to “falsely and fraudulently represent, in in-person and telephone conversations with VA employees, via correspondence, and through other means, that her mother was still alive, when in fact her mother was dead.

When DIC benefits were stopped, the defendant requested that they be restarted on the basis that the beneficiary, her mother, was still alive.”

Roszelle entered a plea of not guilty in court but was ordered to pay a $100 bond and follow other information in her pre-trial agreement, along with getting mental health and psychiatry help.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Roszelle was still in custody in Lee County on a warrant for state charges. She’s convicted of writing a bad check to Costco and not appearing for her arraignment.

Roszelle is set to be back in court later this month and has a status hearing on Oct. 1.

“That’s an astounding amount of money, and I don’t know what the heck she may have did with it, but I’m at loss for words,” Boyd said.

He said he wouldn’t have great things to say to her or anyone else accused of stealing from veterans.

“I probably wouldn’t have too many nice words to say, because there are people out there,  again, that depend on what little bit they get, because let’s be realistic, a lot of these veterans, they’re not getting that much.”