Jason Douglas Strader; grave robbing phony

Someone dropped this in our lap; a story about Jason Douglas Strader. That’s him in the picture above. If it looks like a mug shot to you, well it is;

As you can see, he was a caretaker of a cemetery, Green Hills Memorial Cemetery, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky and him and his wife took a bunch of bronze markers from the place, according to the Associated Press;

Police accuse the 2 of pulling up bronze markers without informing the families who paid for the lots.

Jason Strader admits they pulled up the markers, but says it was part of a plan to replace them with new ones.

Prosecutor Lynn Pryor said the couple should have gotten permission before doing the work, but Strader says that isn’t necessary since he owns the cemetery.

Strader says the only thing he is guilty of is trying to serve the community.

He was later exonerated of the charges but part of the reason he was cleared was the story he told of his military service. According to a witness, this is what he told the judge and his own lawyer;

Mr Strader claims he first started as a Navy aviator as an ensign in the early 1990’s but was released from fighter pilot training because of an in-flight accident as an ensign. He was then reassigned to the intelligence community and completed all courses relevant to the field including SERE training in Quantico, VA with the Marines within a year’s time.

Following training he said he “served as an attache”, still as an ensign to an unnamed vice-admiral. He stated he couldn’t say who the VADM was because he “was still under military restrictions about not talking about it.” He is further claiming his DD-214 is “sealed and classified as Top Secret” and is unavailable because of the nature of his work as an alleged USN intelligence officer.

From the article (behind a paywall) about the trial comes this exchange;

Jason Strader, 41, told jurors that, after washing out of a fighter pilot billet at the former Navy Air Station Miramar in the 1990s, he entered the naval intelligence field for two years before leaving active duty.

NAS Miramar was made famous in the 1986 movie “Top Gun” with Tom Cruise.

Strader and his wife, Taunya, are accused of 46 counts of violating graves and single counts of theft by unlawful taking (more than $500) and theft by deception (less than $10,000).

The couple owns Green Hill Memorial Gardens. They were arrested shortly after the began ripping up bronze grave markers at the cemetery and selling them as scrap in April 2013. The Straders don’t deny they pulled up the markers. Instead, they claim they had a legal right to do so and were obligated to replace the markers, which they say were damaged, by law.

The prosecution has argued that the Straders did not own the markers and broke the law in selling them as scrap.

On Monday, the Straders’ trial resumed in Christian Circuit Court with Jason Strader taking the stand, and Commonwealth’s Attorney Lynn Pryor cross examined him at length about his military service.

Strader testified that he graduated from college and completed his reserve training as a midshipman before being commissioned into the Navy and returning to Miramar to fly jets in 1995.

An eye injury placed him on temporary active duty to a naval hospital in Balboa, California, until 1996, he said, when he worked in the coffee shop for six months while he recovered. Once fully recovered, he continued, he spoke with a career specialist and started his naval intelligence training at the Marine base in nearby Camp Pendleton. Strader testified that he remained there for two years until the end of his active duty service with a rank of lieutenant, junior grade.

The prosecutor asked him if he had any documentation to support what he claimed.

“All you have to do is ask (the Navy) for my reserve training,” Strader said.

“So if I asked them, and they provided me something like this, would it be accurate?” Pryor asked as she handed Strader a sheet of paper.

“It would,” Strader replied after reading it.

The cemetery owner paused over the document and said, “It says (pay grade) E-2.”

“Your rank as well?” Pryor asked.

“It says seaman apprentice but that was well, well.” Strader’s voice trailed off as he inspected the document further.

“I don’t know where you got this,” he continued. “It says I was only active (duty) for 24 days.”

Strader went on to blame the Navy for the misprint, substituting his O-2 pay grade for an E-2, but could not explain how the Navy had seaman apprentice listed as his rank.

However, as Pryor could not authenticate the document, it was not allowed into evidence.

What follows is the part of the above article that was cut by the editor and added for clarity of Mr. Strader’s claims;

Strader avoided answering any further questions asked by the prosecutor about his service in Afghanistan even though he had already testified earlier that he worked as a human intelligence operative (HUMINT) when asked earlier during his direct testimony by his own attorney, Thomas Osborne.

Once confronted again by Pryor to explain his time as a spy in Afghanistan, Strader dug in his heels saying, “There are a lot of things we aren’t going to talk about.”

When pressed by Pryor if he had a DD-214 to support his open claims of intelligence work or the schools he attended, Strader then insinuated that his records were sealed because his work as an intelligence officer was classified.

Pryor expressed surprised that Strader didn’t have his own copy to which he answered that it was at his parents’ home in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Kentucky New Era obtained a copy of the document alleging Strader’s service dates under a Freedom of Information Act request. The heavily redacted document from the U.S. Navy Personnel Center said Jason Douglas Strader entered the Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois on March 10, 1997.

Strader’s extant record says he was separated from service from the same recruiting command on April 3, 1997 – 24 days – of total service. It is signed by a pay grade E-2, seaman apprentice named “Jason Strader” and witnessed and signed by a US Navy Chief P.E. Dennen.

There is no record of Strader attending Defense Language Institute/Foreign Language Center for training although he admitted on the stand that he “went to an intelligence place in Monterey.”

Osborne had Strader testify extensively about his military service on direct examination. Strader said that he spent his first two years at University of California San Diego and then transferred to National University saying the “Navy picked up the school.”

“From there I started (Navy) training, every summer and (school) break.” Strader said eventually graduating with a business degree in 1994.
“During all your breaks you are active duty,” Strader outlined. “(The Navy) will actually pay you to go to school.” He went active duty that same year “after being frocked as an ensign” following graduation and was stationed at Miramar.

While in training, Strader told jurors he “blew a cornea” while training to fly iconic F-14 Tomcat fighter jets with the Grim Reaper Squadron, VF-101, and was medically grounded. He elected to not take a medical discharge, went into naval intelligence and was reassigned to the Marine base at Camp Pendleton, California as a lieutenant junior grade.

“Where in the world would you be responsible for naval intelligence?” Osborne asked.
“Western Pacific,” Strader answered. “Which included mostly the Middle East.”
“Did that include on the ground in the Middle East?” asked Osborne.
“Unfortunately,” Strader said smiling.
“You were working with Taliban, al-Qaeda and working with them?” Osborne prompted.
“I didn’t work with them, I was more reconnaissance,” Strader testified adding he wore civilian clothes, worked on his tan and grew a beard.
“I can pass for a native,” Strader said. He went on to say he stayed in the Middle East until he left active duty in 1997 with four more years of active service in the reserves. Although Strader says he can “pass for a native,” he speaks no Pashto or Dari.

On a historical note, if what Strader said is true, then he was inserted by the US government during the height of the Afghan civil war which culminated with the fall of Kabul to Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, with the help of the Pakistani and Saudi Arabian governments, in September 1996.

Well, I guess his DD214 isn’t as “sealed” as he thought it was;

Yeah, he did three whole weeks at Great Lakes. Then he became an exonerated graves robber and check kiter. It looks like he did more time on the Delayed Entry Program than he did on active duty (he made E-2). From what I hear, judges and prosecutors love being lied to, I wonder if that’s true in the Christian County justice system.

If my opinion matters, I think he stole the grave markers with no intention of paying for them. But, juries…they’re nuts…amIright?

Category: Phony soldiers