Christopher O’Connor, a former Army pay technician and staff sergeant, has been sentenced to five years of probation, 100 hours of community service, and payment of $98,691 in restitution. This sentence, from the New Orleans federal court, ends a lengthy legal saga involving the theft of government funds for falsified military funeral honors ceremonies.
In a Department of Justice press release, U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle announced the decision by U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown. The agency stated that O’Connor was sentenced for “submitting fraudulent reimbursement requests for military funeral honors that he and six other Army reservists allegedly performed, but had not.” Considering the nature of the case, it was prosecuted by the Chief of the Public Corruption Unit, Assistant United States Attorney Chandra Menon.
