They don’t just hand out PH license plates like candy. You have to present military documents, likely a forged DD 214 and the article also said the person had a fake military ID. Those are serious charges right there, and should be for obvious reasons.
In my state after presenting those false documents to a state agency (another serious crime) you also have to sign that everything you filled out on the application and all documents presented are authentic under penalties. Since that was all false there are more charges there.
In my state PH plates do not ever expire, meaning you never pay to register a vehicle again (in my state you can get PH plates for 2 vehicles)- so the state was beat out of a lot of money through fraud and deception and that triggered Stolen Valor charges.
Claiming to be a veteran to impress people in a bar should warrant the type of punishment you suggest (in my opinion)- this is far, far, above that. As far as I know since the Stolen Valor law was changed posing for attention is not a crime, but posing for profit sure is.
I have no problem with the punishment but the article was really confusing.
20 years imprisonment over an act of fraud is still ridiculously OTT, unless the fraudster actually stole money that was intended to pay for someone’s cancer treatment and then they died because they couldn’t pay for it or something.
A 20 year prison sentence should be for crimes that are way, way more serious than this.