An Air Force sergeant who faked his death in a bicycling accident in 1987 and started a new family under an assumed name drew 18 months in prison from a military judge for desertion and bigamy.
James Douglas Pou, 32, also received a bad-conduct discharge Monday.Pou said he left his first wife and their two sons because he was racked with guilt after beating his children.
"I just couldn't see them finding me in the shower with slit wrists," he said.
Judge Willard Pope imposed the sentence at a court-martial at March Air Force Base after a day's testimony about Pou's own abused childhood.
Pou's second wife told the Air Force about his secret after discovering his real identity and finding out that he had impregnated a neighbor.
In a plea bargain, Pou admitted to bigamy and desertion and the government agreed to drop a larceny charge that was based on his first wife's collection of $500,000 in insurance money after he was declared dead.
"I was ready for this to happen," Pou said Monday. "I was scared but I was ready. It was difficult living the way I did."
Pou, a member of an elite parachute rescue team stationed in Albuquerque, N.M., said he faked a bicycle crash at a bridge over the Rio Grande in 1987. He said he jumped from the bridge and made his way to woods upstream.
In San Diego, Pou took the name Christopher Riggs and married a woman that same year who bore him two children.
Pou's second wife, who gave her name as Monica Riggs, testified that the sergeant had showed up at her home carrying no luggage and looking disheveled, with only 87 cents in his pocket. She had met him months before when he visited San Diego and they dated occasionally.