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Democracy Chronicles

Camp Lejeune Victim Or Scammer?

by Andrew Straw - September 13, 2022

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I will be compensated for the wrongful death of my mother and my own infant brain injury by the U.S. Marine Corps at Camp LeJeune Marine Corps Base. Camp LeJeune Justice Act of 2022 (S. 3373), Public Law 117-168, Sec. 804, was signed into law on August 10, 2022, after it was passed 342-88 in the U.S. House and 86-11 in the U.S. Senate.

My claims are already filed with Navy JAG in Norfolk, $51 million each. The only problem is that I remain in poverty, relying on SSDI at $1,275 per month to pay for myself and my HHA and her minor children. Medicare Parts A/B/D does not work in the Philippines, though the low rent costs allow me to pay for my Camp LeJeune mental disability medicines in cash. The VA and federal courts denied me the health coverage specifically for Camp LeJeune victims even when my mom died of a Camp LeJeune cancer, I have a mental disability the VA lists as associated with the toxins, and we used the base for 19 months while my father, a U.S. Marine, served there.

The only thing that mattered to the gatekeepers of justice was the address where we slept at night. 19 months of proven exposure and injury were irrelevant to the government that inflicted the injuries and death and continues not to care.

Despite filing a variety of claims and lawsuits, no compensation has been provided up to now for the death and disabilities inflicted on me and my family by Camp LeJeune. The first glimmer of hope was the Camp LeJeune Justice Act of 2022. The terms of that law make it a virtual certainty that my mother’s death and my infant brain injury will eventually be compensated.

Eventually because the government does not provide any assistance while we wait for justice to happen. No loans. No benefits. No health care.

It was therefore even more exciting when Tribeca Capital set up a webpage advertising Camp LeJeune victim relief and advance loans. Tribeca said up to $2 million could be provided and very quickly too, under 48 hours if approved.

Finally, there was a very real possibility of having the money to pay my HHA, my doctor, my medications, buy a house for me to live in, and help my kids with school. And why not $2 million? Death and infant brain injuries are just about the worst kind of torts. Not much worse than these can happen to a family. I have doctor letters proving I have bipolar and my mother’s death certificate lists the breast cancer VA associates with the base poisons. Open, shut case.

I had a national mass tort law firm on board, Wagstaff Law Firm, and my attorney said she has helped her clients get such financing in the past.

All the ducks were lined up, with evidence I have gathered over 10 years of litigation. There are no other examples of an attorney being a Camp LeJeune victim like me, to my knowledge. I thought that getting the financing would be easy and quick, like the Tribeca website explains, because they care about our suffering.

However, a month has now passed since the Camp LeJeune Justice Act became law and Tribeca is dragging its feet. Mr. William Flavin of Tribeca wanted to talk to me on the phone and he said that he could not believe that I had done so much litigation all on my own and he said he was concerned that maybe I was a scammer because they get lots of scammers. That was his reasoning for the foot dragging.

My work and cases are evidence of a work ethic he likely has never experienced before, not evidence of me being a scammer.

After the amount of pain and suffering and poverty and discrimination I have had to deal with, a mental illness among the worst in the DSM-V, to have some finance officer at an investment company even suggest I might be a scammer was so extremely painful.

I not only am NOT a scammer, I have been a leader in the movement to obtain justice. I was a lawyer and litigant in the failed Multi-District Litigation (#2218). I fought for 8 years to have the health care and showed there was a legal loophole to deny certain victims who were both exposed and injured. I was on TV pushing for a new law THAT I WROTE with benefits and compensation in 2015. I created a 527 group in 2015 called “Children of Camp LeJeune” and my Facebook group with that name has 376 followers today, 7 years after I created it.

For some newbie finance company to say they want to help and then pull the rug out from under one of the leaders and a clear victim is awful. If Tribeca is going to suggest that I am a scammer with all evidence pointing to the contrary, how will Tribeca treat others? Not well, I am thinking. They should take down their website and rethink their patriotism after treating me this way. Other finance companies should learn from this experience that you have to treat the government’s victims fairly and with respect or not be in this business at all.

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Filed Under: DC Authors

About Andrew Straw

Andrew Straw is a person with disabilities who practiced disability law and engages in disability reform advocacy.    Straw was a Virginia lawyer and has served as corporate counsel for billionaire Alan M. Voorhees, who designed the Interstate Highway System and the Metro in Washington DC.  Straw then worked for the Chief Justice of Indiana and was the assistant dean in charge of the International Programs at Indiana University-Maurer School of Law.

He grew up in Indiana, where his brother, a retired USAF captain and twice a critical care trauma nurse veteran of Afghanistan, ran as a Democratic candidate for sheriff of Hamilton County in 2018.  Jason Straw is head of Indiana NORML and seeks reforms of the state’s marijuana laws like most other states have.  Jason is known as “Captain Cannabis.”

Andrew Straw was born at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, where his father was training as a U.S. Marine for his Vietnam duty.  Straw was thus poisoned on the first days of his life but was denied compensation and health care.  Straw v. Wilkie, 843 F. App’x 263 (Fed. Cir. 1/15/2021); Straw v. United States, 4 F.4th 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2021).  Straw started a group for people born or poisoned there called Children of Camp LeJeune.  Congress voted to compensate people like Straw and his dead mother from the poisoning (S. 3373, Title VIII, Sec. 804).  This new law has passed the U.S. House by 342-88 and the U.S. Senate by 86-11.  It will likely be signed by President Biden in early August now that it has passed both houses.

Straw has visited 16 countries and has lived in the United States, Italy, New Zealand, Turkey, and the Philippines.  Straw provided services to the Italian Foreign Ministry as a contractor and passed the written U.S. Foreign Service Officer Test in 1998.  For more information, Straw’s CV can be found here.  Straw has lived in the Philippines for over 4 years, from June 2018 – August 2022, studying disability access in that country, but may one day return to the United States when the human rights violations stop.

He is an asylum seeker due to the discrimination and human rights violations of state and federal courts in the USA.  Andrew Straw lives just 1374 km from where his father was stationed in Vietnam. See also. Straw is engaging in pro se law reform from a distance.

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