US-CA11 · jury_instructions
11th Cir. Pattern Jury Instr. (Criminal) O114
Fraudulent Receipt of V.A. Benefits
38 U.S.C. 6102(b)
It’s a federal crime for anyone to get money from the Department of
Veterans Affairs without being entitled to it and with intent to defraud the United
States.
The Defendant can be found guilty of this crime only if all the following
facts are proved beyond a reasonable doubt:
(1) the Defendant received money or a check without being entitled to
receive it under the laws administered by the V.A.; and
(2) the Defendant intended to defraud the United States.
To “intend to defraud” means to do something with the specific intent to
deceive or cheat someone or some agency, usually for personal financial gain or to
cause financial loss to someone else. But the Government doesn’t have to prove
that anyone was actually defrauded. It only has to prove that the Defendant
intended to defraud.
The Government doesn’t have to prove the precise amount of the pension
benefits wrongfully received by the Defendant, but it must prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that the Defendant knowingly received some substantial portion
of the benefits.
Provenance
- Source
- ca11.uscourts.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-20
- Edition
- criminal-2024-04
- Content hash
95f2e34d6959830cabc476fdad327f08b007a908974bfcd8de8260d379bea292
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.