Former Pima resident Jesse Macbeth, 23, who sought fame and notoriety by claiming to be a veteran of the Iraq war, was sentenced by a federal judge to five months in prison on one felony count of making a false statement.

The sentence, handed down by Chief Judge Robert S. Lasnik of the United States District Court, Western District of Washington, on Sept. 21, includes three months custody in a halfway house, three years of supervised release and participation in mental health counseling.

Macbeth began his nearly four-year string of lies and misrepresentations in 2003 when he began telling his story to a variety of online news outlets and the mainstream press. In November 2003, while living in Pima, Macbeth interviewed with a Courier reporter and fabricated stories of combat injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder and watching fellow soldiers die. Subsequent to his interview with the Courier, Macbeth’s stories included tales of war crimes and a variety of atrocities.

According to a plea agreement filed with the federal court, Macbeth’s stories began to unravel on or about Sept. 19, 2005, when he submitted altered documents to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in an effort to qualify for military compensation.

On his application, Macbeth wrote that he was in active duty service with the U.S. Army from May 1, 2001, through June 13, 2004; he had achieved the rank of corporal and was an Army Ranger; he had been awarded a Purple Heart, a medal awarded to soldiers who are injured in combat; he had served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and he was discharged from the military for medical reasons, the plea agreement states.

In actuality, Macbeth served only 44 days in the Army at Fort Benning, Ga., before he was discharged for “issues related to entry level performance and conduct prior to completion of basic training,” according to the plea agreement.

In 2006, several conservative Internet bloggers exposed Macbeth’s lies, destroying his credibility and embarrassing a company that produced a video about his exploits, according to the June 8 edition of The Seattle Times. This exposure led to his arrest.

In the plea agreement, Macbeth admitted that between 2003 and 2007 he participated “in multiple interviews and recorded statements in the media and on the Internet in which he made statements and claims concerning his military service, including having personally witnessed and participated in war crimes in Iraq, which statements and claims were false.”

According to the United States Attorney’s Office, Western District of Washington, the Macbeth case was one of several cases of phony veteran scams prosecuted in Washington state.

The total monetary loss associated with those cases was $1.4 million, a news release states.

While previous reports on the Macbeth case state he scammed $10,400 from the Department of Veterans Affairs, his plea and sentencing reports did not mention the money.