- Shane Ladner was sentenced
A former Georgia police officer who was convicted falsely claiming he received a military Purple Heart will avoid jail time.
Shane Ladner was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years probation as a first offender.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Ladner must also serve 600 hours of community service and pay $6,000 in restitution to Cherokee County.
The former Holly Springs police officer made the false statement in order to get free license plates, which saved him about $500.
Ladner claimed he earned the medal awarded for combat wounds when he was injured in Panama in 1989 during the operation to capture President Manuel Noriega.
He later changed his story and insisted he was actually wounded in 1991 during a secret mission in Honduras.
But in 2013, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office conducted a six-week investigation into Ladner’s Purple Heart claims and found no evidence that he had been awarded the honor.
He received Purple Heart license plates free of charge from 2009 to 2012.
At the time of Ladner’s arrest, his attorney told the AJC that he did earn the medal and it was lost when sending it home from Central America.
The arrest came after Ladner and his wife Meg were seriously injured during a wounded veterans’ parade in 2012.
Family members blamed Ladner for his wife’s injuries after learning the story he used to be chosen to join that parade was not true.
The incident received national attention when a train ran into the float the Ladners’ were on during the parade.
Four veterans were killed while Meg suffered an amputated leg and crushed pelvis. Her husband suffered two bulging disks in his back.
An Army records specialist testified that there is no record of a Purple Heart document in Ladner’s files.