World | Tue May 31, 2016 2:00pm EDT

Ex-U.S. soldier 'Rambo' gets 20 years in prison in murder-for-hire case

NEW YORK | BY NATE RAYMOND

A former U.S. Army sergeant nicknamed "Rambo" who prosecutors say supervised an international band of hit men and mercenaries was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday for conspiring to kill a federal drug agent and an informant.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan said Joseph Hunter, 51, deserved a lengthy sentence given the "grave and serious" crimes he committed and his guilty plea to charges including that he conspired to murder a law enforcement officer.

"The crimes you committed are serious, and the sentence you received today reflects that," Swain said.

Hunter, a former Army sergeant with over 20 years of military experience, apologized in court, saying he would still be with his family "if I only asked myself what God would have wanted me to do."

The case stemmed from a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sting operation that followed the arrest in Liberia in 2012 of Hunter's boss, Paul Le Roux, the Zimbabwe-born head of a multinational criminal organization.

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