{"id":129021,"date":"2022-08-10T10:30:22","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T14:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=129021"},"modified":"2022-08-10T12:08:50","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T16:08:50","slug":"ft-bragg-soldier-and-wife-convicted-of-sham-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=129021","title":{"rendered":"Ft. Bragg Soldier and “Wife” Convicted of Sham Wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Well, here’s an interesting story. Man and so-called “wife” convicted in a sham marriage intending to get citizenship and benefits.<\/p>\n

\n

Ft. Bragg soldier, \u2018wife\u2019 convicted of sham wedding for $10K<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

by: Judith Retana | Aug 9, 2022<\/em><\/p>\n

ALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) \u2013 A Fort Bragg soldier and his wife are accused of being involved in a sham wedding in exchange for $10,000.<\/p>\n

United States Attorney Michael Easley of the Eastern District of North Carolina says the Fort Bragg Criminal Investigation Division received a tip in February 2019 that Samuel Agyapong, a Fort Bragg soldier, agreed to marry Barbara Oppong, a 43-year-old Ghana citizen living in New York, in exchange for the money.<\/p>\n

Court documents said Agyapong agreed to receive $10,000 upfront while knowing he would also receive additional Basic Allowance for Housing benefits from the Army for having a dependent spouse.<\/p>\n

Through the \u201csham\u201d marriage, Oppong got her green card in January 2015.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Attorney\u2019s office said Oppong later filed an application for U.S. citizenship. Since their marriage, court documents said the pair received about $110,000 of undeserved BAH benefits.<\/p>\n

Other evidence presented at trial showed that Oppong lived in New York while Agyapong lived in a home he purchased in Fayetteville. An attorney argued they hardly ever saw each other.<\/p>\n

In addition, attorneys said Oppong\u2019s paperwork left out the fact she had two children with another man.<\/p>\n

Agyapong was separately tried at a prior trial. He was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison and restitution of more than $110,000.<\/p>\n

Oppong faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Her sentencing hearing scheduled for the November 15 term of court.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not entirely sure why he got 18 months and she may get 20 years.<\/p>\n

What if they fell in love later?\u00a0 Would it still be a sham?\u00a0 The new movie “Purple Hearts<\/a>” has this very same premise.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This also made me think about the current policy on gays in the military – I often wondered if two young military men or women may think it lucrative to marry even though they are not gay, in order to get housing and allowance in addition to getting to move out of the barracks or off the ship. I haven’t seen a lot of accounts of this, but I did anticipate it happening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, here’s an interesting story. Man and so-called “wife” convicted in a sham marriage intending to … Ft. Bragg Soldier and “Wife” Convicted of Sham Wedding<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":663,"featured_media":129022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teh-stoopid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=129021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129025,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129021\/revisions\/129025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/129022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=129021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=129021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=129021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}