{"id":13072,"date":"2014-03-11T08:24:15","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T08:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/us-army-sex-crimes-case-in-doubt\/"},"modified":"2014-03-11T08:24:01","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T08:24:01","slug":"us-army-sex-crimes-case-in-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/us-army-sex-crimes-case-in-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"US Army Sex Crimes Case in Doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

{{A US army judge has said the military may have improperly pushed for the sex crimes trial of a US army general.}}<\/p>\n

Judge Col James Pohl did not dismiss the case, but has offered Brig Gen Jeffrey Sinclair’s lawyers another opportunity for a plea deal.<\/p>\n

Gen Sinclair, 51, is accused of sexually assaulting and threatening a female captain with whom he was having an affair.<\/p>\n

He has admitted the affair but denied assaulting or threatening the woman.<\/p>\n

The US military has come under heavy pressure amid what the Pentagon has called an epidemic of rape and other sex crimes.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Col Pohl said he had found evidence, in newly-disclosed emails, of unlawful influence from senior military echelons in the decision to reject a plea deal before the trial.<\/p>\n

Gen Sinclair’s defence has argued the former deputy commander of the elite 82nd Airborne Division was the victim of overzealous prosecutors under political pressure.<\/p>\n

His lawyers now have until Tuesday morning to decide whether to submit a plea bargain proposal to a different set of military officials, or let the court martial proceed.<\/p>\n

“This is an unprecedented situation,” lawyer Richard Scheff said. “It’s a mess created by the government. It wasn’t created by us. We have so many options, we don’t even know what they all are.”<\/p>\n

Earlier, Gen Sinclair pleaded guilty to three lesser charges against him, including adultery, which is illegal in the military. He faces up to 15 years in prison on the guilty pleas.<\/p>\n

Military prosecutors had no comment after Monday’s hearing.<\/p>\n

Gen Sinclair’s accuser took the stand on Friday, alleging the Army general had threatened to kill her and her family if she ever told anyone of their three-year affair.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors have alleged he twice ended arguments about their relationship by forcing her to perform oral sex on him.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon has estimated that as many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted in 2012, based on an anonymous survey.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the US Senate approved a bill changing how the US military justice system deals with sexual assault, including prohibiting the use of the “good soldier defence” to raise doubts that a crime has been committed and giving accusers a greater say in whether their cases are tried in a civilian or military court.<\/p>\n

A more wide-reaching bill on the issue was rejected by the Senate last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{A US army judge has said the military may have improperly pushed for the sex crimes trial of a US army general.}} Judge Col James Pohl did not dismiss the case, but has offered Brig Gen Jeffrey Sinclair’s lawyers another opportunity for a plea deal. Gen Sinclair, 51, is accused of sexually assaulting and threatening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-justice","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050871,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13072.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13072.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13072.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13072.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13072.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13072.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13072"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13072"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}