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STROUDSBURG, Pa. - A Monroe County man learned he's spending the rest of his life behind bars for crimes he committed in Iraq back in 2015. Those crimes included torturing a former employee and illegally exporting weapons parts. Officials say the employee raised concerns about the company's weapons manufacturing.

The Department of Justice calls it proof that the U.S. will hold perpetrators accountable, no matter where in the world deplorable acts occur.

The Department of Justice celebrated a win of accountability after a Monroe County man was sentenced to 70 years in prison for crimes committed in Iraq in 2015.

The crimes include abducting, detaining, and torturing his employee at the time and illegally exporting weapons parts.

The DOJ says 55-year-old Ross Roggio had a former employee of his company -- the Roggio Consulting Company -- abducted. Court papers detail how back in 2015, the Stroudsburg man then had the victim detained at a Kurdish military compound for 39 days. And he directed Kurdish soldiers to suffocate, tase and beat the victim, even threatening to cut off a finger.

It happened after the victim, a man from Estonia, raised concerns about what they were doing at the company.

And what they were doing, according to Roggio's conviction on 33 counts last May, had to do with exporting weapons parts and services to Iraq without the approval of the U.S. Department of State, smuggling goods, wire fraud, and money laundering, among even more counts.

The DOJ says in connection with the weapons factory project, Roggio also illegally trained foreign persons in the operation, assembly, and manufacturing of the M4 automatic rifle.

Export evasion is often not a standalone crime, said Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod of the Department of Commerces Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS).

Here, the same defendant who was illegally exporting weapons parts to his Iraqi weapons factory was also brutally torturing one of his employees there.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Departments Criminal Division, says this sentencing follows just the second-ever conviction under the federal torture statute, which went into effect in 1994, according to the DOJ.

"Todays sentence," Argentieri said, "shows that, no matter where such deplorable acts occur, the United States is committed to holding the perpetrators accountable.

The FBI also credits the "sheer courage" of the victim to tell his story.

The rest is here:
Stroudsburg man sentenced to 70 years for torturing employee in Iraq - 69News WFMZ-TV

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