An Air Force pilot instructor was to go on trial Monday to face charges that he had sex with two women, one an officer he was teaching to fly at Laughlin AFB in Del Rio.
Capt. Christopher Hill faces four charges and nine specifications of misconduct, accused of having a 10-month affair with the student pilot at Laughlin, having sex with an enlisted woman at Andersen AFB in Yigo, Guam in 2012, and burying an external hard drive that contained incriminating evidence near a hangar at Del Rio’s civilian airport.
Such cases are rare at Laughlin, a hub of Air Force novice pilot training. However, a judge in September found another instructor pilot, 1st Lt. Kevin Sheehan, guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman for having sexual relationships with two female student pilots.
An Air Force court-martial summary stated that he received 100 days in jail, forfeiture of $2,292 for three months, and a reprimand at a trial. He was not discharged.
A plea bargain is possible in Hill’s case. If it occurs, a judge will hear the details of the plea before accepting the deal.
The incidents were part of a pattern of misconduct that followed Hill over the past few years according to Air Force charging documents. One said that Hill, who has been in the service for more than nine years, had sexually flirtatious conversations with enlisted women in Guam and Minot Air Base in North Dakota.
The relationship with the student at Laughlin ran from Oct. 1, 2013 to July 31, 2014, another document states. The woman graduated from pilot training.
The Air Force probe into Hill’s case prompted investigators to uncover other pilot misconduct at Laughlin, one of four bases that trains fledgling pilots. It graduates more than 300 new pilots each year.
The Air Force’s Office of Special Investigation alleged that three instructor pilots repeatedly traded text messages about their use of a manufactured drug they referred to as “Molly,” sometimes a nickname for MDMA, sparking an Internet debate over the privacy rights of airmen sending text messages. Investigators scoured through thousands of messages sent among the three pilots in a six-month period.
Theys were given letters of reprimand and removed from flight status. The Air Force’s chief of staff, Gen. Mark Welsh III, has ordered a Pentagon review that could still lead to charges. The pilots, who have not been charged, claimed they were jokingly citing Miley Cyrus lyrics in those text messages.
A spokesman for the Air Education and Training Command in San Antonio, Col. Sean McKenna, said the case wasn’t that simple or innocent, adding, “The Air Force’s evidence was centered chiefly on text messages that spoke to use or possession of drugs, not in relation to pop culture.”
- Source: http://www.expressnews.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment