Former Spokane County Sheriff’s jailer faces trial for allegedly defrauding $650,000 from government

A former Spokane County Sheriff’s jailer appeared Tuesday before the jury that will decide whether he suffers from a medical condition that causes varying visual problems or if he lied about permanent blindness to defraud the federal government of disability payments totaling more than $650,000.

Donald B. Henderson Jr., of Spokane, faces several years in federal prison if convicted of charges that he defrauded both the Social Security Administration for 14 years and Veteran Benefits Administration for 11 years based on false statements about his alleged permanent blindness.

When he sought monthly payments from both agencies for 100-percent disability, “he said he had an eye disease that caused him to be permanently blind,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Lister told the jury in opening statements.

In some examinations, Henderson claimed he could not read the first letter on the vision chart and could only tell if the eye doctor was holding up fingers from 6 feet away.

Suspecting that Henderson may be misleading government officials, federal agents set up a camera across from Henderson’s north Spokane home. It showed hours of images showing him driving a riding lawn mower, backing his car out of the garage and walking in his backyard.

At one point, Henderson, who served in the U.S. Army and later worked as an investigator for the Washington State Gambling Commission, threw a Frisbee for his dog and pointed out where the disc had landed.

A federal agent then went undercover and posed as the nephew of one of Henderson’s eye doctors. Henderson took the agent shooting, noting where the bullets were missing the target more than 20 feet away. Henderson then shot the target, missing the center by a couple inches, Lister said.

Lister said the government concedes that Henderson suffers from a thinning of the cornea, called keratoconus.

“We will ask you to find that he is not permanently blind,” Lister said. “He gained over $650,000 in benefits he wasn’t entitled to.”

Defense attorney John “Jay” McIntire presented a much more complicated image of Henderson, whose problems started with a motorcycle crash in California in 1984 while he was serving in the U.S. Army.

Henderson suffered head trauma and the symptoms lingered. “He suffers from a post-trauma migraine disorder, which is something that you would not wish on your worst enemy.”

The migraines cause fluctuations in his eyesight and made it difficult to keep a job. He sometimes suffered 10 migraine headaches in a 14-day stretch, which caused him problems keeping his job as a jailer, which he started in 1990. Later in 14998 he lost his job as an investigator for the Washington State Gambling Commission because he couldn’t drive, McIntire said.

Henderson went to scores of doctors who prescribed a laundry list of painkillers, including OxyContin, hydrocodone and morphine that left him chemically dependant and depressed.

A social worker learned that Henderson suffered from keratoconus and suggested he ask for benefits from the VA based on that, McIntire said.

“The VA said apply for more benefits, so that’s what he does,” he said.

But the break came when Henderson was able to see a neuro-opthamologist, who studies how both the eyes and brain and how they work together.

“What this case is really about … is a missed diagnosis,” McIntire said. “It all makes sense … the wildly fluctuating vision. It can be explained in part by the keratoconus but also his brain injury.

“When he learned this, Mr. Henderson broke down and cried. It’s the first doctor who listened to him and did not accuse him of being a liar.”

McIntire agrees that the symptoms of the case are odd.

“But all he did was accurately report what was happening to him,” McIntire said.

The trial before U.S. District Court Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson is expected to last three weeks.