A man convicted of murder for throwing his bride overboard during their honeymoon cruise in the Pacific was sentenced to life in prison.
Scott Robert Roston, 37, "cruelly killed his wife of nine days for no reason," U.S. District Judge James Ideman said Monday.Roston at first told authorities a gust of wind blew his bride overboard, then blamed her death on Israeli intelligence agents.
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kendra McNally, asked the judge for a 30-year term. But Ideman found the circumstances unusually brutal as he sentenced Roston to life in prison without parole - the maximum term allowed by law.
"It is this court's hope that this defendant never be released," Ideman said.
Roston, of Santa Monica, was convicted in March of second-degree murder for throwing Karen Waltz Roston, 26, from the cruise ship Stardancer as it steamed in the Pacific about 20 miles off the Mexican coast on Feb. 13, 1988.
Jurors rejected Roston's contention that agents murdered his wife in retaliation for a book he wrote.
Roston and his family emigrated to Israel in 1978. In his self-published book, "Nightmare in Israel," Roston claimed he was drugged and brutalized in an Israeli mental hospital after his arrest on a robbery charge.
The prosecution contended Mrs. Roston was killed after a series of arguments with her husband.