Jerri Stringer, 41, of Picayune, Miss., pleaded guilty earlier this year to helping her son, Leonard Schenk, sell night vision goggles, helmets and global positioning systems to overseas clients.
U.S. District Judge Lacey Collier sentenced Stringer to 46 months in federal prison with three years of supervised release.
Schenk, 26, worked as a life-support technician, building and maintaining equipment for the helicopter fleet at the 20th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field near Mary Esther, Florida.
He pleaded guilty, and Collier sentenced him last week to nearly 20 years in prison.
Stringer established an eBay account in June 2005 under an assumed name and a PayPal account to collect money from eBay auctions. The pair were accused of using several aliases to conduct their online business.
Schenk stole equipment from the military base, and then he and his mother would place the items for sale on eBay, the indictment states. Schenk would ship the items overseas, and the clients would forward payment electronically to Stringer's PayPal account.
Once Schenk built a comfortable relationship with his customers, he sold the items directly over the Internet, without the intermediary eBay account, the indictment says. The customers deposited their payments in a SunTrust account, also in his mother's name.
A third defendant, Matthew D. Harms, who worked with the 58th Flight Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base, also was charged in the case.
He is accused of helping Schenk assemble the night vision goggles for sale over the Internet. Harms was paid nearly $9,850 by Schenk and Stringer for his assistance
Harms pleaded guilty on Nov. 6 to a charge of conspiring with Schenk and Stringer to steal government property. Collier is to sentence him on Jan. 22.
Stringer, Schenk and Harms will be required to pay $124,000 in restitution to the U.S. Air Force, Collier said./>
