Fake veteran sentenced to home confinement

SEATTLE -- A 71-year-old Port Angeles man who falsely posed as a decorated Korean War veteran has been sentenced to four months of electronically monitored home confinement.

In a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office, Roy J. Scott admitted he posed as a Marine major and used a bogus military discharge certificate to receive $21,960 worth of veteran's benefits.

Before his sentencing on Friday, Scott broke down in tears before Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler and asked that she allow him to continue his job on an oil platform off the coast of Africa. The judge, however, stuck to the recommendations of prosecutors by ordering the home confinement and two years' probation.

Several real veterans attended the sentencing in U.S. District Court in Seattle. One of them, Harry Findley -- who said his father was a Marine officer who died at Guadalcanal during World War II -- called the sentence a "travesty of justice" and said Scott should have had to do time behind bars.