A Maine man who allegedly pretended he was paralyzed for more than a decade to get federal veterans benefits faked his own drowning just weeks after he learned he was being investigated, according to court records.
Gregory Heimann, 51, was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in Missouri on Aug. 21, ending his run from federal law enforcement more than a year after his disappearance in April 2024 triggered a major search in eastern Maine.
Heimann, who lives in Princeton, was charged with making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He convinced doctors that he had been injured during his time in the Army in the 1990s as part of a yearslong effort to convince doctors he could not walk, according to an affidavit filed in support of his arrest that lays out an elaborate plot.
Despite seeing Heimann walk, accumulating evidence and interviewing him in person in February 2024 about the alleged false statements, agents from the VA’s Office of Inspector General didn’t arrest him. A month and a half later, Heimann gathered his belongings in a canoe and traveled to a river near the Canadian border on April 19, 2024, and disappeared. A warrant was issued for Heimann’s arrest 10 days later, according to court documents.
His disappearance ignited a search that included 15 Maine game wardens, along with dozens of civilians, aircraft, watercraft, and all-terrain vehicles. After further investigation, wardens found out that Heimann was in fact not dead and ruled his disappearance suspicious, the Marshals said in a press release Monday.
In 2022, the VA’s OIG initiated a proactive review of his case as part of a broader review of people receiving VA benefits who had lost the use of either their hands or feet. That summer, the agent investigating Heimann learned that in 2019, he was captured on camera walking across a road and pushing and then punching a neighbor while living in Washington state, according to the affidavit.
Following up on information relating to a stop by a Maine game warden, the OIG agent investigating learned that Heimann then lived across the street from the Princeton, Maine, town office and “usually walked to the town office for meetings.”
On May 9, 2023, Heimann went to a re-examination appointment in Houlton. Outside in the parking lot, a VA OIG agent watched as Heimann drove up in his truck and pulled out a wheel chair. Then he wheeled himself into and out of his appointment, according to the agent’s affidavit. During the appointment, Heimann told the person examining him that he was constantly wheelchair bound and couldn’t put weight on his legs.
After the appointment, the agent followed Heimann to a local hardware store where he freely walked around without the use of a wheelchair. Later, the agent followed him to his house where he was seen standing “unassisted” in his yard.
Federal agents also gathered multiple pieces of video surveillance footage of Heimann walking including footage from a Machias Savings Bank, a Walmart where he was seen for more than hour walking, shopping, lifting various items, and pushing a loaded shopping cart.
Less than a year after his reexamination, during an interview in Bangor with federal agents, Heimann was asked why he went to an appointment in a wheelchair but was later seen walking around. He responded “stupidity,” according to court documents. When asked if money was part of the reason behind his actions, Heimann said “yeah,” according to court documents.
The VA OIG did not immediately respond to questions about why it did not initially arrest Heimann. Since January 2016, the VA has paid approximately $244,075 in disability benefits to Heimann, according to court documents.
His alleged grift spans nearly three decades, according to court documents unsealed last week. Initially, in 1996, he sought disability payments through the VA for back, knee and ear injuries that happened when he was in the army in 1995. That claim was denied.
Then, again in 2004 he requested he be evaluated for disability payments. In October that year, he was diagnosed with thoracic lumbar fibromyositis and cauda equina syndrome, which includes symptoms like loss of bowel and bladder control, leg weakness, court records show.
At that time, Heimann still had use of his legs and was using a metal cane and a scooter to cover large distances. A clinician who evaluated him described his pain then as “out of proportion to physical findings.” But he was determined to be 40 percent disabled. Two years later, he was evaluated again, but this time he claimed he had completely lost the use of his legs and required a wheelchair to get around, the affidavit said.
In 2008, a VA clinician determined that Heimann’s condition hadn’t improved and that he was seemingly permanently disabled. At that appointment, clinicians noted that he had to be physically moved from his wheelchair to the exam table as he couldn’t do it himself.