General avoids prison, will pay fine
Guilty of adultery; sexual assault charge had been dropped
Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair was fined $20,000 and reprimanded but avoided jail time Thursday after he acknowledged committing adultery and mistreating his former mistress, an Army captain.
The former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina had faced sexual assault charges involving the junior officer, but the case fell apart after the trial judge ruled that the decision to seek trial might have been influenced by political considerations.
Sinclair was prosecuted at a time when the military is under pressure from Congress and victim advocates for not doing enough to stem a rise in sexual abuse within the ranks. Sinclair, 51, was one of the highest-ranking military officers to face allegations of sexual assault.
Although the crimes he admitted carried a potential prison term, prosecutors instead urged the trial judge, Col. James Pohl, to dismiss Sinclair, denying him his pension and veteran benefits.
Sinclair’s lawyers said that a dismissal, with the loss of a pension, would hurt the defendant’s family. Allowing him to retire, they said, would likely result in a pension at a reduced grade of lieutenant colonel, costing him an estimated $800,000.
Sinclair had pleaded guilty to lesser counts that included improper relationships with three women, possession of pornography while deployed to Afghanistan and mistreatment of a female captain who had been his mistress for three years.
The sentence triggered strong reactions. Some critics say Sinclair got preferential treatment
“Today’s sentencing is a travesty (and) points to the importance of congressional action.” Attorney and retired Navy rear admiral Jamie Barnett
because of his rank. His defenders see him as the victim of the pressure to crack down on sexual harassment within the ranks.
“This sentence is a mockery of military justice nowhere close to being proportional to BG #Sinclair’s offenses,” Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., tweeted.
“Today’s sentencing is a travesty,” said retired Navy rear admiral Jamie Barnett, an attorney who represented Sinclair’s accuser. It “points to the importance of congressional action.”
Army prosecutors agreed Monday to drop the more serious charges that Sinclair sexually assaulted his mistress between 2010 and 2012. He had offered to plead guilty to lesser charges as far back as December, but Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the commanding general at Fort Bragg at that time, rejected this after re- ceiving a letter from Capt. Cassie Fowler, an advocate for the accuser, saying if he accepted Sinclair’s plea, it would embolden political efforts to remove decisions about sexual assault prosecution from the military chain of command. A law seeking such a change was introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. The Senate rejected it this month.
The prosecution case unraveled early last week when prosecutors, in response to a defense discovery request, made the letter available. The defense brought a motion asserting that Anderson’s decision was politically motivated. Pohl suspended trial proceedings and allowed Sinclair to reopen plea negotiations with another commanding officer, Maj. Gen. Clarence Chinn. Chinn approved a plea agreement to the remaining lesser charges over the weekend.