Sinclair sentenced
Shocka! David sends us news that Bragadier General Jeffrey Sinclair, that fellow who was accused of sexual assault, was sentenced today and he got off with a fine, a hefty fine for you and me, but a lot less than what you and I would got.
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair — who struck a plea deal after being accused of sexually assaulting his former lover — was sentenced Thursday to pay $24,100 in fines and restitution, but not jailed or demoted.
Sinclair, 51, smiled after learning his fate.
“The system worked. I’ve always been proud of my Army,” he said outside the Fort Bragg, N.C., courthouse. “All I want to do now is go north and hug my kids and my wife.”
Yup, the system worked. The LA Times reports on his behavior at the sentencing hearing yesterday;
Choking on his words and wiping his eyes, Sinclair apologized to the judge, the captain, his wife, his two young sons and to an institution he has served for 27 years. He begged to be allowed to retire at a reduced rank so that his family may collect military benefits “they have earned serving alongside me all these years.”
I’m disappointed with Judge (Col.) Pohl. I grew to like him while I watched the Guantanamo hearings, but this is really a joke.
Category: Big Army
“The system worked. I’ve always been proud of my Army,”
Yep, sounds like it worked out great for him. He’ll get to retire with his BG’s retirement pay and go on to federal service now.
I am very proud of the Army too. Always have been. But I am not proud to read this judge’s decision.
An enlisted man would already be bent over the defense table in the court room, getting smeared with vaseline for his upcoming stay in the stockade, at least or Leavenworth most likely.
“He’ll get to retire with his BG’s retirement ”
That part is still up for discussion. When he puts in for retirement they’ll hold a board to determine the last rank he honorably served. Hopefully they bust him to LTC since this stuff started when he was a COL.
I would prefer they busted him down to PV1.
TMB Thanks for the info. I did not know that was part of the retirement process for them.
Sparks: every member of the military who retires does so at the highest rank “successfully held”. A court martial conviction or guilty plea almost certainly guarantees his service as BG will not be considered “successful service”. If the misconduct was admitted to/proven to have extended back until he had less than 3 yrs TIS as an O6, he shouldn’t retire as an O6 either.
That said, I agree (more or less) with Twist. I think dismissal here was warranted.
One word say it all Sparks “MY” Army. See that is what his Army is. Corruption Old Boy network. Our Army has really nothing to do with what happens over there. That is why we need to Take Care of Each Other.
I’ll bet that someone who violates the new tattoo policy will get punished more harshly than Gen-Gen, here.
CB Senior. You hit the nail on the head and countersunk it! Yep, “HIS ARMY”. The enlisted folks serving in the “reality” military of all branches, have to take care of each other without fail. No one else higher, especially GOs, seem to give a darn.
the enlisted wouldn’t get vaseline. The Big Green Weenie would however be wrapped in 80 grit sandpaper….
You spoke the truth there Stacy0311.
You are far too genteel. Instead of 80 grit, for an enlisted schmo, 3/4 inch gravel would be the “lubrication” of choice.
Added note. Pays to be a General I guess. Well, this time for sure, it pays in the military, it pays in retirement and it paid in the wrist slap he got.
I am disheartened by this.
Hope his wife kicks him in the ‘nads. Real hard. So hard we all can feel it.
I think she needs to take him to a divorce court in a community property state. Let’s see how he likes living on half of his retired pay and the loss of half his assets. Oh and child support till the kids turn 18. Plus their college tuition. He will pay for this, be sure of that.
What. The. Fuck.
When your accuser is caught in lies about the very charges leveled against you, to the point that all the most egregious charges have to be dropped… you get punished for the small things you admitted to.
Anyone remember COL James Johnson from the 173rd? Found guilty at Court Martial for adultery, faking his divorce to remarry, defrauding the government of thousands in expenses for running around Europe with his mistress, defrauding the government of tens of thousands for giving mistress’ father a cell phone and a work contract. Sentence was $300k fine and retired as a LTC. His wife was pissed at the court for going easy on him and started speaking publicly about the Army sacrificing justice for the spouse’s sake. The family is the soldier’s responsibility, not the Army’s.
one can only remember Orwell – “All animals are created equal – but some are more equal than others.”
Sucks.
General Asshole should busted to E-1, discharged, and required to register as a sex offender.
I’m tired of this crap. Remember there are others affected by this, there were OERs and NCOERs crapped on because of this turd.
I left JTF-GTMO after a very successful tour with a Rater and Senior Rater ‘not in position long enough’ OER because the BN and BDE commanders couldn’t control their individual penii around women who weren’t their wives. A memo in good standing is not the best thing to have for a promotion board.
Until the respective spouses of these louses think more of their pride and their outrage than their philandering other half’s paycheck and bennies, this will continue. And get worse.
A very old chauvanistic saying goes: “Well, we’ve established what you are; now we just have to determine your price.” Apparently, Colonel and pay and higher is the the going rate.
That’s “lice”.
“The higher you go, the higher the standards?”
Nope…It’s: “The higher you go, the less of the penalty.”
So it is. I could puke.
How many Officers and NCOs has this guy torpedoed for similar offences? How many GOMARs have his signature on them?
I’ll bet he retires as a LTC. If so, in my opinion something approximating justice will have been done. Assuming he lives a normal lifespan, the difference between O-5 and O-7 retired pay will dwarf the fine he’s paying up front. Well into six figures, most likely. Plus, he now has a federal criminal record, which will limit his future employment opportunities. Plenty of employers would love to hire a retired GO. But a retired LTC with a criminal record? Not so much.
If he’d been convicted of non-consensual sex offenses he’d deserve the big hammer, no doubt. But for these lesser offenses? He’s receiving a decent amount of pain, IMO; and he’s going to continue to feel it, with every paycheck and every pension check, for the rest of his life.
He could probably whip All Points Logistics into shape, come to think of it.
Disgusting and disgraceful outcome. Not holding out much hope for board action for retirement at a reduced rank. The GO fix is in.
“The system worked” yeah right. I can only imagine how morale of the people this “toxic leader” was in charge of has been impacted. This makes me want to puke
I was in Afghanistan when he was “removed” from his job as DCG-S for the 82nd. What gets missed in all this is that his actions had an impact on support to the war effort and preparations for drawdown and base closure. We had contracts that were stalled, project timelines disrupted, and who knows how much money lost for the taxpayers. It was always unavoidable that this would happen during a planned RIF, but much worse when they had to replace a Division Level Deputy Commanding General out of the blue. Whatever he looses in retirement pay will be but a small percent of what he cost the nation.
“The system worked.” Yeah, but it wasn’t the legal system. It was that other system, the one that’s nowhere in writing, the one that has nothing to do with justice.
I wonder what that fine comes out to per love session?
This case was about a lack of integrity, self discipline, honesty, and principle which, it seems, are silly and archaic notions today, I guess.
2/17 Air Cav It’s not really funny in this case but when I served, the word was Officers, especially the higher in rank they went, were suppose to not just have integrity, self discipline, honesty and principals but were to display and practice them as models to be emulated by their troops. I guess things do change. Not always for the better.
I hate seeing it happen, I hate saying it, but this is what happens.
Here’s the next chain of events:
Sinclair is going to go up before the board. They are going to determine since he did indeed plead guilty he was an honorable man. They are also going to determine since he has already been sentenced and convicted that is punishment enough.
Final outcome? Retirement in grade.
I hope you’re wrong. If it does happen, it would be a travesty. He doesn’t necessarily need to be pounded into the ground, but he definitely needs to suffer more than a 20K fine.
wat: you might want to research fomer MG John Maher. He did far less about 10 years ago and got caught.
He retired as an O6.
I think the big difference here is that he has already been convicted at a court marshal. Maher was never subject to one. I strongly believe this is gonna end up working in his favor and the good ol boys club is gonna say “this is punishment enough let him keep his rank”
Ironically enough, the very people who preach the need to reform sexual assault in the upper levels of the government will let this slide too because as we know generals are politicians and they can’t have a scandal within their own ranks.
The question the board has to answer, though, is what is the highest rank at which he saitisfactorily served? It would make little sense to hold that a GO who was convicted of multiple criminal offenses had nevertheless served satisfactorily; while another who was never convicted did not. Criminal conviction, to me, is diametrically opposed to satisfactory service; while no conviction actually gives you more room to argue that the service was satisfactory (“he was never convicted, how bad could it be?”).
Although I agree with this 100% its logical, and everyone knows this system doesn’t operate on logic. It’s going to get spun and spun and spun until its figured because he admitted to his misdeeds at that rank, that means he served honorably and therefore should keep his rank. Is it wrong? Beyond all belief. But that’s the new politically correct military that preaches accountability, but only for junior ranking personnel.
He’s already said publicly (through his lawyer) that he’s willing to retire as an O5. Surely the grade determination board will be aware of that. If they are, I can’t imagine the board would be very likely to give him anything more favorable than that which he’s already said he’ll accept.
“A Travesty..”
http://www.wtop.com/289/3586524/Army-general-fined-reprimanded-in-sex-case
A conviction at Court Martial (even a plea bargain) is the definition of other than honorable service according to the UCMJ.
Well, now the Senate will run with this, and the end result will be several more hours of briefings a month for those of us who never have and never will follow in the good BG’s footsteps. Let the powerpoint presentations begin!
so what charge that he was convicted (well plead to) deserved more punishment and how was it different then what a JO would get?
Adultery?: most people get administratively chaptered and that is different then dismissal from service (if you get chaptered it is usually a general, dismissal is = to a dishonorable.) big big differasnce.
having inappropriate relationships would get someone an article 15 most likely and a chapter but absent other charges like such as a less then consensual relationship probably no more
misuse of a travel card: all i can think of from my time is joes getting fined the cost plus an article 15.
having pron and derogatory language, article 15 at the most.
remember you can only sentence on what you have plead to or been convicted of.
as far as to the comments that this is the old boy network or officers can get away with anything, i just don’t see it in this case (And i am not a fan of most current GOs), if he was not a GO i doubt he would have been court marshaled in the first place. and officers can’t be demoted by article 15 because our rank is approved by congress and only the promoting authority can take rank.
lastly in regards to the people saying he would crush Soldiers who did this i say yes he would have up to taking one rank from from E6-7 and all rank for E1-4, half pay for 2 months and extra duty, that’s it because that’s all he could do under article 15th and if went to court marshal he would not be making the decisions.
IF he had been convicted of the serious charges he would have gone to jail but he wasn’t so he can’t be punished for things that legally he did not commit.
the real lesson from this is the prosecution F-ed up and everyone should demand trial by court marshal.
oh and he is a sleeze and should be retired at LTC
The officer class taking care of it’s own. Wow, what a surprise.
What makes him think his wife wants hugs? She’s thinking of what she can get after he finishes his fall. And she will.
As far as the sexual assault charges being dropped as part of a plea deal, doesn’t the defense counsel have to run that by the prosecution first, who must also take into consideration the sexual assault victim in the case? I would think the victim in this case would have said “No fuggin’ way”… or is that sort of latitude not given in military courts? While I understand the necessity of pre-trial agreements, it’s hard to believe the sexual assault charge was dropped when it seems it was the basis for this whole thing in the first place… among his other acts of shitbaggery.
Anyone know?
USMCE8 – think they found that the witness was not credible, which blew that segment of the case. This was a case with allegations of undue command influence in the opposite direction than normal – the first prosecutor quit because the chain of command was pushing too hard to get a conviction despite serious flaws in the case.
I have to admit that in general (no pun intended) I am somewhat torn – while I think Sinclair is guilty as hell and a sexual predator who deserves to have the book thrown at him, on the other hand, when I see the “outrage” from civilians for whom almost all of these charges aren’t even crimes in the civilian world – they are screaming for blood and yelling “off with his head – see, the military doesn’t prosecute one of their own!” for a final list of charges which are all relatively minor – I feel like telling them to shut the f*ck up and let the military judge ts own.
I submitted the below to several sites. A friend of mine answered my post with the question, “Wonder how many Joes he hammered for some of the same offenses he just got away with during his climb up from Lt to BGen?”
I am a retired First Sergeant. From my days as a Private through my retirement day, the ethos I was taught and what we are told to live by is honor, courage, commitment. As a Gunnery Sergeant, I was an Assistant Marine Officer Instructor at NROTC Duke and UNC- Chapel Hill. Plenty of opportunity to do the wrong thing in that environment. The average caught and charged for “dipping the DEP” was three AMOI’s or MOI’s a year while I was on this duty. They were charged and their careers destroyed and rightly so. They violated the trust placed in them by the Corps, the trust of the families of the Midshipmen involved, and the schools.
Servicemen are charged with the same offenses in line units and training units every year. Careers ended, even some good brig time. All justified. Yet here we have a General Officer that violated his oath and the UCMJ not once but hundreds of times over a three year period. And he walks free with a fine that is laughable when one peruses the pay chart and look at the retirement pay rate for a Brigadier General. I was also taught and firmly believed that the higher the rank the greater the responsibility for setting the example and the less allowance for moral and legal lapses.
So in the last year, a Marine Staff Sergeant had his career destroyed for urinating on a dead enemy fighter (One mistake). Actually two. The big crime, as any Marine worth his salt will tell you, was embarrassing the Corps. The ultimate Marine Corps sin. And now, a General Officer walks after knowingly violating the UCMJ hundreds of times over a multi-year period. Including highly questionable travel claims, which equates to theft from the government. There truly has been a travesty of justice.
The trial counsel during sentencing did a very peculiar thing by not asking the judge for confinement. The plea deal was for something like no more than 18 months. Usually, the trial counsel will ask for some amount of time. I think by not asking for any amount of confinement, it put Judge Pohl in a bad spot. So in this instance, I think it’s more on the prosecution than the judge.