BARBARA WALTERS, ABCNEWS There’s something violent criminals know that you probably don’t. Something that gives them the last laugh. As their victims struggle to recover from being assaulted or raped or nearly killed, some of their very attackers have found a way to cash in on crime. We are paying for it, and it’s all perfectly legal. Perri Peltz uncovered an outrage against innocent people who feel they’ve been victimized twice.

PERRI PELTZ, ABCNEWS (VO) Most days, you can find her shut away behind window bars and heavy curtains. Seventy-three-year-old Pauline Johnston is spending her golden years in this darkened living room, too afraid to go out much or draw up the blinds.

PAULINE JOHNSTON The fear will never leave me. I have got it just as long as I draw a breath. If I get in a car and go anywhere, I am terrified to get out of that car and start walking.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Seven years ago, Pauline became a victim of violent crime. A purse snatcher grabbed her and dragged her across the pavement of an Orlando, Florida, parking lot.

PAULINE JOHNSTON Dragged round and round by my pocketbook.

PERRI PELTZ How badly were you hurt?

PAULINE JOHNSTON For one solid year, I lay on my back, in my bed. What that man did to me had a terrible effect in my life.

PERRI PELTZ Pauline Johnston’s attacker was a man named Paul McCray. McCray is no stranger to the law. As you can see, he has a rather lengthy arrest record, which makes it so surprising that a few years after McCray brutally attacked Pauline, he was awarded more than $4,000 from the state. From a fund reserved for the innocent victims of crime. You received over $4,000?

PAUL MCCRAY Yeah.

PERRI PELTZ Why is that? That was intended for the innocent victims of crime.

PAUL MCCRAY Yeah. Well, I was an innocent victim of crime myself.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Paul McCray, the homeless man who beat up Pauline, says that he himself became a victim of crime just a few years later. That made him eligible for something called the victim’s aid fund. Every state has one. It pays medical bills and lost wages for people who were injured in violent crimes. But a 20/20 investigation has revealed that across the country, money for victims is going to criminals like these and repeat felons like Paul McCray. What happened to you that night?

PAUL MCCRAY I got caved in the back of the head. They stole everything I had.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) McCray, an alcoholic, claims he was mugged late one night, even though he can’t remember what happened or who hit him. The victim’s fund approved his claim. An innocent victim of crime?

PAUL MCCRAY Uh-huh.

PERRI PELTZ You’ve got a very lengthy arrest record. That money was meant for innocent victims of crime.

PAUL MCCRAY I understand that. I told you I got hit in the back of the head.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Unlike the man who beat her, Pauline Johnston received no money at all for her hospital bills. She didn’t know there was a victim’s fund and never applied. Pauline, what was your reaction when you learned that your attacker, Paul McCray, was awarded more than $4,000 because he was the victim of an assault?

PAULINE JOHNSTON That he himself got money for what happened to him and after all what he did to me? I’m a victim all over again.

PERRI PELTZ How can it be that you have this elderly woman who can’t get a dime, and yet her assailant receives thousands of dollars from the state of Florida?

SALLY HEYMAN It is a travesty. The victim’s compensation fund is the best kept secret for innocent victims of crime.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Florida state Representative Sally Heyman says Pauline’s case is far from unique. Only a tiny percent of law abiding victims know about the fund and apply for it.

SALLY HEYMAN How does a poor, innocent victim that’s state wide out there the masses know? Maybe a fluke. It’s a haphazard catch-if-you-can. I actually had a detective that said he really didn’t know about the fund.

1ST MAN Are you freely and voluntarily pleading guilty?

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Ironically, convicts know about the program because they pay into the fund as part of the their criminal sentence. Does every felon know?

SALLY HEYMAN You bet. They’re slapped with that $50 fine and they’re told about it when they are passed judgment on before they get their butt locked up.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Heyman says the ex-cons use the extra cash when they get beaten up in a barroom brawl or a drug deal gone bad. They claim they were the innocent victims of an attack.

JAMES LEE HOPPER Yeah I was the victim of a violent crime.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Consider the case of James Lee Hopper, also of Orlando.

JAMES LEE HOPPER They show on my record that I’ve done crimes and I’ve victimized people, robberies and battery on law enforcement officers. I’ve been convicted of a few things.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Yet Hopper was able to dip into the victim’s fund on two separate occasions. Once for being shot before sunup in a neighborhood known for drug dealing. He received a total of $10,000 in victim’s aid. Even though he owed his own victims $1,700 in court-ordered restitution. He told our Orlando, Florida, affiliate WFTV that the money wasn’t used for his debts. Where did it go?

JAMES LEE HOPPER Clothes.

REPORTER For you?

JAMES LEE HOPPER Yeah.

SALLY HEYMAN They are taking compensation money and using it like a shopping spree.

PERRI PELTZ Why? What are they doing with the money?

SALLY HEYMAN They’re going shopping. They’re detailing cars. They’re buying clothes for themselves.

REPORTER Do you think you should have taken some of that money and paid back what you owe?

JAMES LEE HOPPER Definitely.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) But payback may not happen any time soon because Hopper, the victim, is back in prison on an assault charge. Florida is just one of 43 states that allows felons to receive victim’s compensation, sometimes while they’re sitting in jail. Like Dean Rossey (ph). He received $15,000 in victim’s aid even though he’s serving a 15-year sentence in Wisconsin for attempted murder.

1ST WOMAN Johnny, can you open your eyes and look at me?

PERRI PELTZ (VO) This is his victim, John Giese (ph), in a coma after Rossey put a gun to his skull and pulled the trigger.

2ND WOMAN That he should be sitting there collecting $14,000 or $15,000 when he practically killed my son, it’s just unfair.

PERRI PELTZ The middle-class Giese family had no problems with the law until teen-age John fell in with a bad crowd. One freezing night in December, John was driving with Rossey and two other boys, looking to buy marijuana, when Rossey ordered him out of the car, stole his money and shot him and left him for dead.

2ND WOMAN At that point I thought I would rather have him blind. I would rather change his diapers. I just wanted him. I just wanted him to survive.

2ND MAN A miracle.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Despite the odds, John pulled through, though he struggles with many physical problems. So how did this attempted murderer manage to collect $15,000 in victim’s money while in prison? Well, a few months before he shot John, Dean Rossey got into a fight with some gang members and broke his jaw. He filed for victim’s compensation, but the check didn’t arrive until after he was convicted. Now in prison, Rossey has high praise for Wisconsin’s victim’s aid, quote, “It’s a nice program. It helps out victims, it really does.” The Justice Department wouldn’t come on camera, nor would the attorney’s general from the states we’ve mentioned, but they tell us only a tiny fraction of victim’s aid goes to ex-cons. We couldn’t verify this claim because most states wouldn’t give us their records.

(VO) But law enforcement around the country told us they are becoming increasingly frustrated by these criminals turned victims. In Medford, Oregon, Sergeant Dave Rider (ph) is on a manhunt. There is a warrant out for repeat offender Anthony Bounds (ph) who lives in transient camps. But not too long ago Bounds received victim’s money for being injured in a fight.

SERGEANT DAVE RIDER Four years ago when he was assaulted, he wanted victim’s assistance funding for his medical bills, for supposed lost wages. Now he’s a wanted felon. How does that work? You can be a victim and be a wanted felon at the same time? Or one after the other? Or not quite at the same time?

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Some years back, Rider arrested Bounds for the rape of an 11-year-old girl.

DAVE RIDER This is where Anthony Bounds brought the 11-year-old girl, after some struggle, removed her clothing and raped her. The fact that a 20-year-old male could rape an 11-year-old girl and then become a victim himself and request victim’s assistance funding, to me is ridiculous.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Recently the girl turned 18, and the hospital sent her all her bills from the childhood attack. She had to take a second job to repay them while her rapist got free medical care, courtesy of Oregon victim assistance.

WOMAN It just makes me really angry that he can collect money and I still can’t pay off my hospital bills from back then.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) Oregon officials say they told the girl’s family about victim’s aid. The family says that’s simply not true. Cases like these have caused other states to ban criminals from the victim’s program. Ohio has a tough no-felons policy put in place after what happened to maximum security inmate Morris Young. Young received a life sentence for two rapes, nonetheless he applied for $25,000 in victim’s money while behind bars. And he got it. Does it strike you as odd that you would receive money from the government for the innocent victims of crime when you were convicted of rape?

MORRIS YOUNG I am the victim. I’m entitled to $25,000.

PERRI PELTZ (VO) But public outrage changed the law and forced Young to repay the money. He vows to fight on. And now in Florida, repeat offenders like Paul McCray will no longer be eligible for victim money. There are those who say that’s unfair. Ex-convicts can fall prey to criminals just like anyone else, and need state aid. But don’t tell that to victims like Pauline Johnston, who is still too afraid to venture out on her own. He robbed you of some independence?

PAULINE JOHNSTON He did. This is the one thing he took away from me that cannot be given back to me, independence.

BARBARA WALTERS If you are wondering whether Pauline Johnston can collect compensation now that she’s aware of the fund, the answer is no. After a crime, there is a deadline for applying for aid, and she missed it.