{"id":32418,"date":"2012-10-16T11:23:20","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T15:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=32418"},"modified":"2012-10-16T11:23:20","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T15:23:20","slug":"wedding-scheme-lands-private-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=32418","title":{"rendered":"Wedding scheme lands private in jail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/nation\/2012\/10\/15\/kansas-soldier-gets-months-for-sham-marriage\/du3cYGShaIpOcNQbZkNeLP\/story.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed4\">Joshua Priest<\/a> probably thought that he was the first private to ever think that he could put something over on the Army by having a sham marriage and milking them for those big BAQ bucks. It looks like it back-fired once he was caught and even cooperating with the prosecutor didn&#8217;t help him out. The sentence started out with 10 months in prison, but the judge didn&#8217;t stop there;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In a rare move, U.S. District Judge Monti Belot rejected the prosecution\u2019s request for leniency for Joshua Priest, saying it was not justified in this case. The former Fort Riley private pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and wire fraud, and testified against his wife, Shannakay Hunter.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018\u2018The fact you came in and cooperated is fine, but it doesn\u2019t excuse what you did,\u2019\u2019 Belot told the crestfallen defendant during the sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Belot also ordered Priest to pay nearly $30,000 in restitution for the fraudulently obtained housing and subsistence benefits given married soldiers.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He also admitted to the court that he never met his Jamaican wife before the wedding and that their marriage was never consummated. Don&#8217;t feel bad, Joshua, some of our real marriages never get consummated the way we&#8217;d hoped.<\/p>\n<p>Brushing aside prosecution&#8217;s pleas for leniency, Belot told Priest, &#8220;the \u2018\u2018only benefit\u2019\u2019 he would get from the government\u2019s motion was the chance to voluntarily surrender at the prison and not be taken into immediate custody.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to Tman for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joshua Priest probably thought that he was the first private to ever think that he could &hellip; <a title=\"Wedding scheme lands private in jail\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=32418\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Wedding scheme lands private in jail<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32418","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}