MURDER PLOT OF INTERNET SWEETHEARTS BUSTED

Woman Who Plotted Husband's Murder Gets 16 Years

SAN DIEGO -- The wife of a sailor who plotted with her Internet lover in a failed attempt to kill her husband at North Island was sentenced Monday to more than 16 years in federal prison.

Sharon Marie Ball, 30, pleaded guilty last Nov. 22 to attempted murder.

Ball and her lover, Army Sergeant Jason Wayne Cline, 27, admitted that they planned to kill John J. Ball several days before the attack and had purchased a large knife two days prior to the April 5, ambush of last year.

Cline, who was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, flew from Dallas to Southern California to meet with his co-defendant and carry out the killing, according to prosecutors.

Cline and Ball met over the Internet in 2002 but didn‘t meet face-to-face until he flew to California to kill her husband, according to court documents.

Cline, who served in Iraq, approached the victim, a petty officer second class, and cut him on the face, chin and hands and beat him with his fists.

The assailant was captured hours later on the North Island military base.

Sharon Marie Ball fled in her pickup truck and was arrested later, authorities said.

Defense attorney Michael Berg said his client‘s name was on her husband‘s life insurance policy but she might not have been aware that she was the primary beneficiary.

The judge noted the defendant had forgery and theft convictions at the age of 24, and a misdemeanor bigamy conviction a year later.

Ball was on probation for the bigamy conviction and a bench warrant had been issued for her arrest at the time of the attempt on her husband‘s life.

The judge urged the defendant to use her time in custody to start turning her life around.

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