A former commander at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio was sentenced to 21 days in confinement and forfeiture of pay after he pleaded responsible to having an inappropriate relationship with a workers sergeant regardless of being ordered by superiors to cease.
Col. Christopher Meeker, the previous commander of Wright-Patterson’s 88th Air Base Wing, was sentenced Tuesday night after coming into a responsible plea to violations of the Uniform Code of Army Justice, together with Article 90, willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer, and Article 134, fraternization.
As a part of his plea settlement, the federal government dismissed a specification of extramarital sexual conduct that he was beforehand charged with. Col. Matthew Stoffel, the decide within the case, sentenced Meeker to 21 days’ confinement on the Ohio base, in addition to reprimand and forfeiture of $7,000 of pay per 30 days for 2 months, a information launch from Air Pressure Materiel Command stated.
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A UCMJ authorized professional instructed Army.com that the case is critical, noting that it is fairly unusual for these varieties of circumstances to finish in imprisonment and including they typically are settled with administrative and nonjudicial punishment.
“There was one thing additional egregious right here,” Eric Carpenter, a former army lawyer who’s now a legislation professor at Florida Worldwide College, instructed Army.com in an interview Wednesday. “The jail time actually in all probability mirrored the egregiousness of the violation of the orders.”
Meeker had been faraway from his command of the 88th Air Base Wing on Dec. 29, 2023, by Lt. Gen. Donna Shipton, the commander of the Air Pressure Life Cycle Administration Heart.
However the conduct that led to the court-martial passed off after Meeker’s time in that management place, the bottom stated within the information launch.
“Air Force prosecutors stated Meeker fraternized by partaking in a private and sexual relationship with a workers sergeant,” the information launch from Wright-Patterson Air Pressure Base stated. “He additionally disobeyed Shipton’s direct order to discontinue all digital and private contact with the enlisted airman by persevering with the connection.”
Meeker was finally charged Oct. 25 with violations of three articles of the UCMJ. Shipton had transferred the case to 18th Air Pressure Commander Maj. Gen. Charles Bolton, who served because the convening authority, because of probably being known as as a witness within the case.
Notably, Meeker opted to waive an Article 32 pre-trial listening to and, upon coming into a responsible plea Tuesday, “completely waived his proper to current proof and needed to clarify why he was responsible.”
Meeker didn’t reply a cellphone name or textual content messages despatched to a quantity listed for him in public data Wednesday.
Wright-Patterson detailed that Meeker stated he “willfully disobeyed” an in-person and digital no-contact provide and that he acted “selfishly, for my very own private happiness.”
Meeker marks the newest Air Pressure officer lately to plead responsible throughout court-martial proceedings.
Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart, the previous commander of the nineteenth Air Pressure, confronted a court-martial final yr after being accused of sexual assault and different allegations by a subordinate. He pleaded responsible to a number of the lesser fees and was found not guilty of sexual assault.
Former Maj. Gen. William Cooley, beforehand the commander of the Air Pressure Analysis Laboratory, was convicted in 2022 of forcibly kissing his sister-in-law after which retired as a colonel.
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