Minnesotan found guilty of posing as wounded POW and reaping $146K in benefits

Jurors on Friday convicted a Minnesota man of collecting $146,000 in federal benefits by falsely claiming to be a decorated Marine Corps veteran who was wounded in action, captured and tortured in Iraq.

Mikhail Robin Wicker, 39, of Dilworth was found guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Paul of wire fraud, mail fraud, using a false military discharge certificate and fraudulent use of military medals in a scheme he ran from 2015 through 2020.

Wicker has been free on his own recognizance since he first appeared in court after being indicted. He now awaits sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.

On Thursday, Wicker testified and stuck to his claims of being a decorated Marine who served in Iraq and was wounded.

Marine veterans from Lima Company also testified and said Wicker never served with them. Among the more prominent veterans who served in Lima Company at the time Wicker said he did is Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.

The unit Wicker claimed to have been a part of “suffered some of the highest casualties of the Iraq War,” the indictment filed in April 2024 read.

Federal agents testified that searches across Marine Corps and Department of Defense databases confirmed there was no record of Wicker ever serving in the military. Rather, employment, pay, and state court records placed him in Michigan during the years he claimed to be deployed to Iraq.

At the time he was charged, Wicker was a behavioral intervention specialist with the Moorhead Area Public Schools. The district fired him on April 30, 2024, four weeks after he was indicted, a district spokeswoman said Friday.

His scheme started to unravel in January 2020, when he applied for an increase in disability benefits, a prosecution pretrial brief read. The application included a letter from Wicker in which he discussed various aspects of his supposed service, his claimed deployment and his injuries.

“This latest submission prompted VA staff to look more closely at Wicker’s records,” the prosecution brief revealed. “In evaluating Wicker for the increase in disability benefits, the staff were unable to locate records for Wicker in various databases.”

John Kriesel, a former Minnesota state representative from the east metro who lost both legs because of a roadside bomb in Iraq while in the Army in 2006, said in response to Wicker’s ruse, “Unbelievable. I hope they throw the book at him [at sentencing].”

According to court documents:

Wicker submitted forged and falsified documents when he applied for veterans benefits. They included certificates verifying his military discharge and that he had received a Purple Heart. He also claimed to have received the Prisoner of War Medal, the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Overseas Service Ribbon and the Iraq Campaign Medal.

As a result, despite never having served, he was paid $146,287 in health care, disability compensation and educational benefits while attending North Dakota State University in Fargo.

“As part of his yearslong scheme, Wicker interacted not only with staff at the VA, but also contacted legitimate Marines who actually served in Lima Company,” the prosecution pretrial brief read. “Wicker … sent messages on Facebook claiming to remember certain people and asking for details that he claimed to forget.”