Ex-Marine, citing PTSD, gets prison for parking spat bombing
Posted March 20, 2019 12:26 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NEW YORK — A man who joined the Marines two days after the Sept. 11 attacks has been sentenced to a decade in prison after blaming post-traumatic stress disorder for car bombing his neighbour after a parking dispute.
Despite a fireball and an explosion powerful enough to buckle the car’s doors, the victim miraculously escaped injury when the bomb was detonated as he drove down a Bronx street in 2016.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer said Wednesday that he would have made Richard Laugel (loh-GEHL’) spend twice as long in prison if not for his military heroism.
The judge cited a letter from Laugel’s former platoon commander saying Laugel had provided security during the initial invasion of Iraq for former Secretary of Defence James Mattis who led a Marine division at the time.
The Associated Press
