Judge Sentences Two Men to Wear ‘I Am A Liar’ Sign
Now this certainly a different sort of punishment. A judge in Great Falls Montana had enough of two men who lied repeatedly to the court telling him they served in the military.
The Great Falls Tribune reported that one of the two men even managed to get himself enrolled in Veterans Treatment Court before his deception was discovered. That same man claimed in court that he had served seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and he suffered from combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and had a hip replacement after being injured by an improvised explosive device, or IED. All of that was a bunch of malarkey.
The men could have been charged with stolen valor, which is a federal crime, but they were not. The Stolen Valor Act of 2013 “prohibits falsely holding oneself out to be a recipient of certain military decorations with intent to obtain money, property or other tangible benefit”.
Cascade County District Judge Greg Pinski Said in court:
There are certain people — shameful people — who have not put their lives on the line for this country who portray themselves as having done so...abhorrent to the men and women who have actually served our country...I want to make sure that my message is received loud and clear by these two defendants...You’ve been nothing but disrespectful in your conduct. You certainly have not respected the Army. You’ve not respected the veterans. You’ve not respected the court. And you haven’t respected yourselves.
One of the men was convicted of felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs and sentenced to 5 years in the Montana State Prison with 2 years suspended.
The other man was convicted of felony burglary and was sentenced to the Montana State Prison for 10 years with 3 suspended.
According to the Great Falls Tribune both defendants received the following conditions in order to be eligible for parole:
- Personally hand-write the names of all 6,756 Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Personally hand-write the obituaries of the 40 Montanans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Personally hand-write letters of apology identifying themselves as having lied about military service to the American Legion, AMVETS, the Disabled American Veterans, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Vietnam Veterans of America.
- He also assigned both men 441 hours of community service, one hour for each of the Montanans killed in combat since the Korean War.
- In addition, Pinski mandated that every year during the suspended portions of each of their sentences, both men must stand at the Montana Veterans Memorial for eight hours on each Memorial and Veterans Day wearing a placard that reads, “I am a liar. I am not a veteran. I stole valor. I have dishonored all veterans.”
Now this is a pretty interesting idea for sentencing, do you think? I especially like the need to wear a sign saying they are liars, we could use more of that today.
How about we use this same idea for politicians, “journalists”, “news” people and pundits. I would love to see a politician have to wear a sign stating “I am a liar” during press conferences.
I would not make people have to wear those signs for white lies but certainly big lies. For example when former President Obama on June 6th 2009 said:
If you like the plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your doctor, too. The only change you’ll see are falling costs as our reforms take hold.
He and all the Democrat’s repeated that false statement many times for years in their attempt to fool people into supporting their plan. We later found out that aids even told former President Obama not to say that because it was untrue, he continued to use that lie. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary the definition of a lie is:
to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
President Obama should have been sentenced to wearing a sign stating “I am a liar” during multiple press conferences as well as any Democrat who repeated that lie that hurt so many Americans. If we have this punishment for our politicians and "news" people from any party or ideology maybe less of them would actually lie to us.
By the way the Judge Pinski cited a Montana Supreme Court case that he said gives him the ability to impose this sentence and take the stolen valor into account.
More From WBCKFM
