Saboteur of Levee Bent on Love Affairs Receives Life Term
KIRKSVILLE, Mo. — A man prosecutors said sabotaged a levee during the 1993 Midwest floods to strand his wife so he could have affairs was sentenced Monday to life in prison.
James R. Scott, 24, of Fowler, Ill., was convicted in November on charges of causing a catastrophe. He admitted to police that he removed sandbags from the levee, opening a breach that allowed the swollen Mississippi River to flood 14,000 acres of farmland and destroy scores of buildings in West Quincy.
The breach also shut for 71 days a bridge that was the only link between Missouri and Illinois for 200 miles.
Prosecutors said Scott, an arsonist and burglar, told a friend that he wanted to make sure his wife couldn’t return home across the river from her Missouri job, so that he could have affairs and party.
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