{"id":158564,"date":"2026-02-17T17:02:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/158564\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T17:02:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T17:02:06","slug":"tallahassee-man-pleads-guilty-to-posing-as-decorated-veteran-to-receive-va-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/158564\/","title":{"rendered":"Tallahassee man pleads guilty to posing as decorated veteran to receive VA benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; A Tallahassee man pleaded guilty to theft of government funds after allegedly posing as a U.S. Army veteran, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Michael Dyson, 46, fraudulently applied for Veterans Affair benefits in 2022, according to court documents. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Court records show Dyson claimed to have served in the U.S. Army and had been awarded both a Purple Heart and Bronze Star medal. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-center article-text\">More on crime in our area: <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Dyson allegedly secured VA benefits from April 2022 to June 2025 for medical treatments valued at over $100,000, according to court records. Records also show he tried to get VA housing benefits in May 2025 when the fraud was discovered. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The investigation revealed that Dyson had previously tried to get VA benefits in Boston in 2013, but was denied, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Dyson faces up to ten years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/02\/17\/tallahassee-man-pleads-guilty-posing-decorated-veteran-receive-va-benefits\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; A Tallahassee man pleaded guilty to theft of government funds after allegedly posing as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1387,22808,75969,75968,232,234,30535,75970,233,75971,27979,13469],"class_list":{"0":"post-158564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-fraud","9":"tag-guilty-plea","10":"tag-man-poses-as-veteran","11":"tag-posing-as-veteran","12":"tag-tallahassee","13":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","14":"tag-tallahassee-man","15":"tag-tallahassee-man-pleads-guilty","16":"tag-tallahassee-news","17":"tag-va-benefits","18":"tag-vet","19":"tag-veteran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}