SENTENCED. JAMES SCOTT, 24, the Illinois man convicted of having caused a catastrophe by removing several sandbags from a levee holding back the swollen Mississippi River during the 1993 floods; to life in prison; in Kirksville, Missouri. Prosecutors maintained that Scott, intent on stranding his wife across the river so he could party, created a breach that ultimately flooded 14,000 acres of farmland, destroyed scores of buildings and closed a key bridge.