quote:

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Pitlyk of the Eastern District of Missouri sentenced that man, DeLeo Barner, now 60, to 100 hours of community service and a week of time served for the passport fraud uncovered in the investigation of the case, which was first reported by The Kansas City Star. As part of a plea deal, federal prosecutors dropped the more serious charge of identity theft.

......

After three years of service, during which he was stationed in Korea, he was discharged for “missing a readiness alert,” which barred him from re-enlisting. Mr. Barner returned, the documents say, to “a St. Louis that was even worse from the one he had left.” Within three weeks of being home, two of his friends were killed because of gun violence. “In desperation, he spoke with a military recruiter about how soon he could possibly rejoin,” Mr. Barner’s lawyer, Melissa K. Goymerac, wrote in a sentencing memo. Ms. Goymerac wrote that the recruiter advised him that it was going to take at least two years to petition to re-enlist, but that “there might be another way back in with someone else’s information.”

And so he did, vowing that “this time would be different.”

Mr. Barner enlisted under the name Joel Sanders, and earned a number of medals for his service, including one for good conduct, according to court documents. He received a medical discharge from the military in 1988 after a “botched” surgery, court documents show. Mr. Barner, who continued to live as Joel Sanders, went on to use his military experience to start a security business in Germany. Four of his six children still live in Berlin, none bearing his real name.