Stolen Valor gets man a reduced sentence
Doug Sterner sends us this link of a former Marine who endangered the lives of his girlfriend and anyone else within shotgun range of his apartment;
David J. Searight, 40, of Adam Street, City of Tonawanda, was living in a second-floor apartment on Oliver Street in North Tonawanda at the time of the April 25 incident. No one was hurt when the rounds went through the apartment below his and lodged in a ceiling joist in the basement of the building, Assistant District Attorney Susan B. Bjornholm said.
She sought the maximum two-year jail sentence for Searight’s guilty plea to two counts of second-degree reckless endangerment, but Niagara County Judge Matthew J. Murphy III imposed three years’ probation and 25 days in the county work program “in light of the defendant’s whole life. . . . I just don’t see how a sentence of incarceration is appropriate.”
Searight’s lawyer, Robert Convissar, said his client won the Navy Cross and two Purple Hearts in the Middle East and had no prior criminal record. “He had one bad night,” Convissar said.
Yeah, no Navy Cross and no Purple Hearts – but as long as the lawyer says it out loud, the judge believes it. maybe two years was a little excessive, but no jail time for missing by two feet a bed normally occupied by two children? Because of a lie? The newspaper reporting it doesn’t check either. Now that the 9th Circus has decriminalized war stories, everyone gets in on the act.
Category: Phony soldiers
Doesn’t false statement in court or under oath still equal perjury or is perjury protected speech now too?
I mean I know our former CINC did it and got away with it….
And you don’t WIN decorations, you are awarded them or earn them. It’s not like they had BINGO one night at the MWR tent and the prize for getting 5 in a row is a Bronze Star.
The only one you ‘win’ is Purple Heart–and that’s for winning the unlucky lottery.
Maybe one of the attorneys can jump on here. Can Searight be charged with perjury if only his attorney stated that he was awarded the NC and PH? If the light sentence was based on his military service, can he be re-sentenced based on the invalid claims?
Only the attorney is on the hook normally. He probably has a duty to correct the record. It could impact the sentence depending on the state.
Convissar, the attorney, was NOT under oath, so there is no perjury. But, he is under ethical standards that forbid misleading the court by making a statement that he (the attorney) knows to be false and does so for the purpose of misleading the court.
He could face a charge of contempt of court, and could be sanctioned by the loss of his licence to pratice law.
Lawyer judges don’t discipline other lawyers. They trade business cards. I don’t believe the defense attorney will be held accountable, again because stealing honor is just freedom of speech – a protected action.
I can’t speak for either the New York State judiciary, or the New York State Bar, but In Virginia judges do not look favorably on attorneys who materially misrepresent facts to the court. And the Virginia State Bar is fairly quick to hand out punishment to those who are ethically challenged.