Amy Burns believes the husband who deserted her and their two children should stay locked up as long as possible because the next time he gets caught pulling a scam, someone will be hurt.
James A. Burns was sentenced Tuesday in 2nd District Court to one to 15 years in prison for communications fraud after admitting he cheated Bambi Tueller, Bountiful, pretending to be a wealthy Scottish earl and international businessman.Amy Burns didn't discover she was his third wife until after they were married. She didn't learn he had spent time in prison and was on parole until he tried to outrun a police car in New Mexico when the officer tried to pull him over for speeding.
"I hope to work with Bambi and the other former wives to keep him in prison as long as possible," Amy Burns said Tuesday from her Jacksonville, Fla., home.
"He needs to be in jail. He'll kill someone next time, or turn it into a hostage situation when they come to get him. The violence is escalating," she said, referring to the loaded guns police found in Tuel-ler's home when Burns was arrested Feb. 1.
"He'll never go back to prison. He's been there twice," she said.
Amy Burns met her husband when they both worked for the same Jacksonville company. A relationship developed, although she didn't know James Burns was married at the time, or that he'd been married once before and had a son.
They moved to Angel Fire, N.M. That's when James Burns tried to outrun the police. She discovered he'd been in prison in Florida on bad-check charges and was on parole. He had left Florida, violating his parole.
"That should have finished it, but I was too gullible and too in love with him," she said. "And he always had a good explanation."
After James Burns did more jail time and finished his parole in Florida, the couple moved to the Salt Lake area in 1988, settling in Sandy.
She worked in a dental office. James Burns first worked in a transmission shop, then for a construction firm where he traveled overseas to work up project bids.
He began brokering deals independently. "He was successful and made good money," Amy Burns said.
But the marriage began to suffer from what she said were James Burns' numerous extramarital affairs. Amy Burns gave him an ultimatum, leaving Salt Lake City with their two children and returning to Forida in September 1993.
James Burns promised to follow, telling her he needed time to transfer his business to Florida, she reported. He visited her occasionally, once bringing her a Mercedes-Benz.
But the visits and telephone calls became infrequent, especially after July 1994 when he met Tueller. Eventually, they stopped, as did any financial help for her or their two children.
The last contact Amy Burns had was a telephone call from her husband Jan. 8, 1996. She finally learned what happened to him this year when James Burns was arrested.
"I had filed for divorce on the grounds he abandoned the family," Amy Burns said. "We couldn't even find him to serve him the papers, so I had to put a legal ad in the Salt Lake newspapers."
The divorce was granted. Now she's trying to strip James Burns of custody rights to the two children, also on grounds of abandonment.
As for her feelings Tuesday when hearing her ex-husband was sent to prison, Amy Burns said it's a form of closure for her. "Now he can feel what it's like to be abandoned, to be left alone. Because in prison, no one's going to be there for him," Amy Burns said.