Matthew Buckingham gets sentenced for phony Marine scam
We’ve been following the Matthew Buckingham caper since February when he was arrested for his Craigslist scam wherein he sold phony lottery tickets and posed as a Federal agent and a wounded Marine. The Saint Louis Post Dispatch reports that he was sentenced to a year in the Federal pound.
He arranged to meet these women at different bars and restaurants in the area and introduced himself as “Tyler Matthews.” He told them he worked for various federal agencies and said he served in the marines in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that he had been injured during the war. He said that he had worked with the Department of Homeland Security and the coast guard, and said he worked “undercover” in north St. Louis “infiltrating gangs and otherwise combating crime,” authorities said.
He did not hold a raffle and has never been in the military or employed by the federal government, authorities said.
A year seems a little light to me, but I’ll take what little justice I can find these days.
Category: Phony soldiers
matthew buckingham is going to get bucked in prison, and it is not going to be pretty…
I agree Jonn, but it’s more than *nothing* so let’s take some solace in that.
Nonviolent crime, pleaded to a felony, year in prison. I can live with Buckingham getting that. As a convicted felon, he can kiss voting and owning firearms goodbye – plus almost certainly most future jobs.
“Matt” better hope he can live with it.
Clown.
It’s only for one year, but hey, Bubba, Thor& Company will straighten his ass out during that, hey Matt Buckingham, SQUEEEEAL when you bend over to pick up the soap! As far as job prospects when he gets out, maybe he could be the new dishwasher/janitor at Ralph’s Bar & Grill!
I’m pretty cynical about his sentence. I think that this guy would have been given the same sentence if he had ran his scam as just an unaffiliated raffle. Other than a bit of fodder to make the story interesting for the news, his Stolen Valor asshattery had no affect on his sentence. Until they throw in added time for violating the stolen valor act, it doesn’t have any teeth.
How many people have been profiled here have ever been put in jail for Stolen Valor itself?