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grassman 
Group: Members
Posts: 3858
Joined: Mar. 2006
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Posted on: Mar. 21 2014,1:27 pm |
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US Army General Jeffrey Sinclair Facing Sex Charges Adding Lawyers
FORT BRAGG, N.C. — A U.S. Army general charged with sexual misconduct plans to add civilian lawyers to his legal team after expressing concern his military lawyers feared their careers would be harmed by defending him.
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair appeared in court Thursday at Fort Bragg for a hearing on pre-trial motions. Sinclair faces court martial in June on charges that include forcible sodomy, indecent acts, violating orders and adultery. He has thus far deferred entering a plea.
Military judge Col. James Pohl asked Sinclair on Thursday about an e-mail the general sent to the head of the Army's legal branch suggesting the three lawyers assigned to defend him feared retaliation. At a past hearing, the defense has suggested they may call top Pentagon officials as witnesses in the case, including Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Ordinario and Gen. Lloyd Austin, the incoming head of U.S. Central Command.
"I had a belief, I was concerned," Sinclair told the judge. He added that he felt his military lawyers would defend him to the utmost of their ability, but that he still wished to add four civilian lawyers from the firm Montgomery McCracken, based in New York and Philadelphia.
On Thursday, Pohl denied an earlier motion from the defense to disqualify prosecutors over privileged emails erroneously sent to them by criminal investigators. The messages included exchanges between Sinclair and his lawyers, his wife and a family friend who is an ordained minister.
Other pre-trial motions are due Friday. The Army has thus far rebuffed public records requests from The Associated Press for copies of all motions filed in the case.
A 27-year Army veteran, Sinclair faces life in prison if convicted on the most serious offenses. It's rare for an Army general to face court-martial. There have been only two cases in recent years.
More commanders have lost their posts over sex. Of the 18 generals and admirals, from one star to four stars, fired in recent years, 10 lost their jobs because of sex-related offenses.
That tally does not include retired Army general David Petraeus, who was forced to resign as CIA director in November after he admitted to an affair with the woman who wrote the biography of his military career.
The investigation of Petraeus also ensnared Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, over thousands of flirty emails he exchanged with a Tampa, Fla., socialite. The Pentagon later cleared Allen of inappropriate conduct, but he announced earlier this week he would retire rather than take command of NATO forces in Europe, as had been scheduled.
At an evidentiary hearing for Sinclair in November, prosecutors presented testimony about his conduct with five women, including officers who served under his direct command. The charges involve activities when he was in Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany and at installations in the United States.
Sinclair was deputy commander in charge of logistics and support for the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan before being relieved in May during the criminal investigation. He has been on special assignment since then at Fort Bragg.
The female captain at the heart of the case said she carried on a three-year sexual relationship with Sinclair, a married father of two. Adultery is a crime under military law, and the admission could end her career.
She testified at the evidentiary hearing that she repeatedly tried to break off the affair with Sinclair, who she says threatened to kill her and her family if she told anyone about their frequent sexual liaisons in hotels, headquarters and war zones.
The woman said she usually wanted to have sex with the general, though she said that on two occasions he exposed himself and physically forced her to perform oral sex, even as she sobbed.
The Associated Press does not publicly identify victims of alleged sexual assaults.
Two other female officers who served with Sinclair also testified that they had given the general nude photos at his request.
Sinclair is also accused of possessing alcohol in a war zone and disobeying orders. Maj. Gen. James Huggins, Sinclair's superior officer in Afghanistan, testified he ordered Sinclair to cease contact with the female captain after she reported the affair. Sinclair is alleged to have willfully disobeyed that order by then calling the woman's phone.
Sinclair has not yet spoken publicly about the charges against him. At the pretrial hearing, his defense lawyers conceded the affair with the female captain, while working to paint her as a liar trying to ruin the general's life and military reputation. During the hearings, they characterized her as a manipulative "back-stabber" who blamed others for her mistakes.
The general's wife, Rebecca Sinclair, has stayed away from court but went public with an opinion piece in The Washington Post. In that column, she said she was not condoning her husband's infidelity, but she said that a decade of war had taken a toll on military couples and brought pressure on their marriages.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Rebecca Sinclair said her husband called her last spring to tell her about the affair and allegations, and she said they were trying to mend their relationship.
I think when he admitted the charges he got fined. $20,000. They should lose all pension and privileges. 
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git er done!
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Self-Banished
Group: Members
Posts: 22589
Joined: Feb. 2006
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Posted on: Mar. 21 2014,2:13 pm |
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I have different punishments in mind for rape. 
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 Remember boys and girls,
Don’t be a Dick …
Or a “Wayne” 
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| Post Number: 3
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Liberal
Group: Moderator
Posts: 11451
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Mar. 23 2014,1:17 am |
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When I was an MP we would eat at the stockade in the mornings. One day I noticed an older soldier that looked to easily be retirement age in the prisoner line. On the way out we had to retrieve our sidearms at the front desk so I asked the jailer at the desk what the story was. He said it was an E8 with 19 and 1/2 years in and he was convicted of adultery. He was sentenced to 9 months and a dishonorable discharge when his sentence was up.
Back in the mid 80s adultery was a pretty serious offense so I expected that General to be "retired" as a Colonel at the very least. The sentence was disgusting and shows how dysfunctional the military is when it comes to sexual assault prosecution.
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The people are masters of both Congress and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it!
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| Post Number: 4
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grassman
Group: Members
Posts: 3858
Joined: Mar. 2006
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Posted on: Mar. 24 2014,5:50 am |
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Brig. Gen. Sinclair sentence again shows flaws in military justice, critics say
ByJennifer Hlad
Stars and Stripes
Published: March 20, 2014
Members of Congress and victim advocacy groups reacted with horror and resignation Thursday to news that Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair will avoid jail time and instead be reprimanded and fined after pleading guilty to adultery, mistreating the female captain with whom he had a three-year relationship, misusing a government credit card to pursue the affair and other charges.
Sinclair must still go before a review board that will determine at what rank he will be allowed to retire, but the punishment is far less severe than life in prison, as he had faced. The possible sentence was reduced when sexual assault and other serious charges were dropped in return for his agreement to plead guilty to the other crimes.
Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, called the punishment “laughable.”
“This sentence is a mockery of military justice, a slap on the wrist nowhere close to being proportional to Sinclair’s offenses,” Speier said. “The misuse of government funds should be enough to fire Gen. Sinclair. There are plenty of former government employees who have been canned for less.”
Greg Jacob, a former Marine and current policy director for Service Women’s Action Network, said the case illustrates why prosecution authority should be removed from the defendant and victim’s chain of command, as proposed in a bill by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
“Today’s sentencing is reflective of a case that fell apart long before today,” Jacob said. “The Gen. Sinclair case will go down in history as yet another reason we need Sen. Gillibrand’s Military Justice Improvement Act.”
The bill failed to reach the threshold necessary to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, but Gillibrand has vowed to keep fighting until a similar measure passes.
Sexual assaults can be hard to prosecute, and the Sinclair case is particularly complicated, said Sarah Feldman, a spokeswoman for Sen. Claire McCaskill, who opposed Gillibrand’s legislation but pushed for a slate of other significant changes to the military justice system.
Still, the case highlights “what we already know: that commanders are often more aggressive than prosecutors in pursuing prosecutions and vetting those cases,” Feldman said.
Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican and co-chair of the Military Sexual Assault Prevention Caucus, said he is deeply disappointed by the sentence.
“This unfortunate outcome bolsters our call to increase mandatory minimum sentencing in cases of sexual assault and sexual misconduct,” he said.
Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., who serves as the other co-chair of the Military Sexual Assault Prevention Caucus, said she was shocked when she heard Sinclair’s sentence.
“Military leaders must be held to a higher standard, but this sentence undermines that standard of accountability,” Tsongas said. “It is clear that Brig. Gen. Sinclair abused his authority and perpetuated a toxic military culture that is accepting of unprofessional, inappropriate and criminal behavior.”
The case will send a “chilling message” to victims of sexual assault, and likely discourage them from reporting attacks, said Nancy Parrish, president of Protect Our Defenders.
“The military’s promises of ‘zero tolerance’ for sexual offenses continue to ring hollow as yet another high-ranking official is let off the hook,” Parrish said. “This case demonstrates how high-ranking bad, abusive and even unlawful behavior is tolerated. The level of tolerance is too often dictated by the number of stars you have on your shoulders.”
Mallika Dutt, president and CEO of Breakthrough, a human rights organization, said the sentence also sends a clear — and troubling — message about violence against women.
“We look to our military to, at the very least, uphold their own values of honor, integrity, respect and more. It is deeply disappointing when instead they are seen to uphold the cultural norms that say women are less-than, inferior, dispensable,” Dutt said. “This is the very culture that allows discrimination and violence against women and girls to continue.”
Military leaders have made efforts to address sexual assault in the ranks, including working with Congress to implement changes to the way the military justice system handles the assaults and helps victims.
But, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby, military leaders know they must do better.
“We take the crime of sexual assault very, very seriously,” he said Thursday.
Kirby declined to comment on the Sinclair case or sentence but said leaders are concerned about victim confidence in the system and about “the ability of leadership and the system itself — the justice system itself — in making sure that those who are found guilty are held properly accountable.”
Also Thursday, a Naval Academy football player accused of sexually assaulting a female midshipman during an off-campus party in 2012 was found not guilty. The superintendent of the Naval Academy previously decided not to prosecute two other midshipmen who had originally been accused of sexual assault in the case. The case raised more questions about whether victims should feel comfortable reporting assaults.
But, Kirby said, despite such high-profile examples of acquittals or cases that do not go to trial, “there are plenty of other cases that go all the way to trial and get convictions.”
“And look,” he said. “Prosecutions and convictions, while important in terms of holding people accountable, that’s not the ultimate goal here. The ultimate goal here is zero sexual assaults in the military. That’s what we’re after.”
I guess position holds no matter what.
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git er done!
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| Post Number: 5
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Self-Banished
Group: Members
Posts: 22589
Joined: Feb. 2006
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Posted on: Mar. 24 2014,8:08 am |
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...to determine what rank he gets to retire at???
I still think he should lose a couple of "dependents"
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Remember boys and girls,
Don’t be a Dick …
Or a “Wayne”
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| Post Number: 6
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grassman
Group: Members
Posts: 3858
Joined: Mar. 2006
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Posted on: Mar. 24 2014,2:29 pm |
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I think this just represents another example of, if you are on top, the rules do not pertain. This is not a free country. For some, but not all.
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git er done!
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