Military veteran faked using wheelchair for 20 years to collect $660K in benefits

A veteran in New Hampshire admitted he spent the last 20 years bound to a wheelchair to collect more than $660,000 in benefits for his fake injury after he was busted “walking normally” following visits to his Veteran’s Affairs office.

Christopher Stultz, 49, pleaded guilty Thursday to making false statements to the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2003 to collect a 100% disability rating, according to the US Attorney’s Office.

Stultz’s elaborate scheme started in Jan. 2003 when he told the VA that he could not use his feet after leaving the service, granting him a substantial rating.

A 100% disability rating currently ranges from $3,800 to $4,200 monthly, but the compensation has fluctuated over the years.

Stultz also obtained funds through the VA’s Automobile Adaptive Equipment to purchase “special cars and vehicle adaptations designed to help mobility-impaired veterans.”

Stultz, a kindergarten teacher at Antrim Elementary School, received $662,871.77 in VA benefits he wasn’t entitled to between Jan. 2003 and Dec. 2022, officials claim.

Stultz is a kindergarten teacher at Antrim Elementary School. Mr. Stultz/X

Before coming clean to his lies, Stultz had been witnessed and recorded multiple times walking without needing a wheelchair or other ambulatory device to move around.

In Oct. 2021, Stultz was seen using his wheelchair at the VA Medical Center in Jamaica Plain in Boston only to lift it into his car and drive off from the facility moments later.

He then went to a shopping mall, where he was seen walking normally without his wheelchair.

Prosecutors said Stultz was then “surveilled on multiple occasions” since the first incident.

The veteran repeated the same action he had a year earlier at the VA facility in Manchester, but this time was recorded walking normally throughout the mall without needing any assistance in Oct. 2022.

Several people who knew Stultz as far back as the early 2000s also shared with investigators that they had never known him to need a wheelchair or any other walking assistance.

When confronted by law enforcement officials about his mobility, Stultz admitted that he could use both feet and was aware he was wrongly collecting the extra benefits, as the documents show.

The teacher was formally charged with one count of making false statements on Sept. 13, 2023.

Stultz’s sentencing date has been set for May 6, 2024. He faces up to 5 years in prison and three years of supervised release.

He may also be ordered to pay back the entirety of the funds he fraudulently received over the years.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has begun cracking down on bogus claims over the years.

In Sept. 2023, Paul John “PJ” Herbert was indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested on one count of theft of the government and one count of making false statements.

Herbert, a Marine veteran, was accused of stealing over $344,000 in military disability benefits and submitted a Purple Heart application for injuries suffered in a roadside bombing that never occurred.

The veteran claimed he suffered a traumatic brain injury from an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) during a deployment to Iraq following the end of the Gulf War, but was it was revealed that he was “falsely representing” himself as a decorated war hero injured in the line of service.