GI Flashbacks: The 2005 Osan Shakedown Scandal

Anyone familiar with the villes in South Korea outside the US military bases knows that these areas are pretty seedy and filled with questionable characters.  Most of these questionable characters are some of the bar and business owners looking to fleece as much money from USFK servicemembers as possible.  However, there are times when some of the USFK servicemembers are just bad as some of these questionable business owners and there is no better example of this than the 2005 Osan Shakedown Scandal.  In March 2005 news broke that the leader of the 51st Security Squadron town patrol 1st Lieutenant Jason D. Davis was regularly shaking down local club owners in the Songtan entertainment district outside of Osan Air Base.  Davis was accused of accepting bribes, gifts, and sex with women at the clubs in exchange for not putting the clubs off limits.  Here is a picture of Davis from his days as a cadet at the Citadel, which he

Davis as the head of the 51st Security Forces Squadron’s town patrol had the ability to put the clubs outside of Osan AB off limits for 24 hours before being reviewed by his leadership for further action.  Davis used this power to threaten club owners with being put off limits if they didn’t provide him with free drinks and prostitutes. He would do this by executing unauthorized sting operations:

He said Davis also had him take part in unauthorized “sting” operations in which Dooge and other airmen would enter clubs and try to buy alcohol or try to arrange sexual liaisons with bar girls — a process known as “bar fining” and a violation of U.S. Forces Korea policy.  [Stars & Stripes]

Davis would then go on to strike up a relationship with the daughter of a club owner.  The Korean woman Kim Mun-hui would then go on to give Davis a number of gifts such as a Chrysler Sebring, a Rolex watch, Louis Vuitton slippers, cash, free drinks, and even a vacation to Guam.  Kim however would go on to become the person responsible for the ultimate down fall of Davis.  However, during Davis’ corruption spree he rented out an apartment outside Osan AB just so he could have a place to have sex with all the various women he was hooking up with in the clubs.  He was doing all this while he was still married to a woman back in the US.

On top of all of this 1LT Jason Davis was a bully to the people that worked underneath him:

Airman 1st Class Nathan D. Dooge, formerly of the 51st Security Forces Squadron, said Davis pressured him to house-sit Davis’ dogs without pay.

Davis encouraged him to drink alcoholic beverages although he was 19 and under the legal drinking age, Dooge testified.  (…………)

In addition, Dooge testified, Davis fired plastic pellets at him from an airgun, locked him for about 30 minutes in the squadron’s women’s dressing room and refused to release him.

1LT Davis’ world of corruption would come crashing down in February 2005 when his Korean girlfriend Kim Mun-hui contacted Osan authorities to say she had been raped by Davis.  This likely wasn’t true because according to unconfirmed rumors this was probably an attempt by Kim to get back at Davis for cheating on her when she found out Davis took a trip to Russia to meet up with one of his Russian girlfriends there.  The Korean police would also go on to charge Davis with keeping a firearm in the off post apartment he kept.  The Korean authorities would ultimately pursue only minor gun charges against Davis, but nevertheless the cat was now out of the bag and authorities at Osan AB were going to have to do something about it.

What is really amazing about the whole Osan Shakedown Scandal is that who knows how long Davis would have been allowed to get away with his corrupt dealings without the rape charge?

The court martial of 1LT Davis was handled very carefully with it being executed during Chusok to probably avoid Korean press coverage.  There was also a pre-trial agreement put in place that assured that the court martial would be over quickly. Also the Korean girl that Davis had a romantic relationship with that exposed his activities to begin with didn’t testify assuring that possible juicy details not already made public was not exposed during the court martial. Davis faced up to 21 years in jail if he was convicted of all the charges he was faced with, but due to the pre-trial agreement this is what 1LT Davis ended up being convicted of:

Davis pleaded guilty to running illicit police undercover operations, accepting gifts and cash from club owners, maintaining illicit sexual liaisons with bar girls, breaking the U.S. military’s curfew that the town patrol had the duty of enforcing, being drunk and disorderly, having sex with women who were not his wife, illegally possessing weapons, illegally keeping an off-base apartment, using racial and ethnic slurs, filing a leave request with false information as to his intended destination and maintaining an improper relationship with a subordinate airman.

Davis only received a two year sentence for all of these crimes.  Servicemembers convicted for something as simple as BAH fraud have received sentences similar to what Davis received. Most interesting is that Davis did not have to forfeit all pay and allowances, which meant he would still be getting paid as a lieutenant while in prison.  The only reason I think of the judge did not impose this penalty is that he wanted to make sure that Davis’ wife back in the US still had income to take care of herself.  Something else that is strange about what he was convicted of was the fact that despite admitting to having sex with various bar girls he was not convicted of any prostitution and human trafficking charges.  Even more strange was the fact that the ROK authorities pursued no real charges against Davis for his crimes.  Not pursuing the rape allegation I understand considering how Kim would not cooperate with authorities.  However, why wasn’t Davis pursued in Korean courts for thee shakedowns he was conducting off duty?  If the anti-US groups want to complain about US servicemembers getting away with crimes here is a perfect example of this, but it has nothing to do with the SOFA and everything to do with ROK authorities not pursuing the case.  Probably to at least create the appearance of doing something the ROK authorities did fine Davis $4,800 for keeping an illegal firearm in his apartment:

But according to testimony in a June 10 pretrial hearing into the Air Force’s charges against Davis, Korean National Police officers found firearms when, armed with a warrant, they searched an off-base apartment Davis was accused of keeping illegally. Agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations joined in the March 1 search, according to hearing testimony.

Police allegedly found various weapons and ammunition. Air Force special agent Etai Shpak testified at the June hearing that police found two pistols and one shotgun, a rifle, and various types of ammunition.

Among other weapons allegedly found during the raid, Shpak said, were brass knuckles, thumbcuffs and pepper spray. Korean officers seized the weapons, he testified.  [Stars & Stripes]

Where did these weapons come from?  Are they Air Force weapons?  If so what type of weapons accountability did the 51st Security Squadron have?  If they are not Air Force weapons then how did Davis get them into the country?  If he smuggled them into the country shouldn’t he have received far greater punishment for weapons smuggling?  Additionally what was he using these weapons for?  The amount of unanswered questions regarding the weapons charges is really amazing.  This guy is able to shake Koreans down for sex, money, and gifts and have a number of illegal firearms in his apartment and only gets a $4,800 fine.

Anyway despite the light punishment Davis received from the US court martial he appealed the conviction and tried to get his sentence reduced.  If you can believe it the appeals court actually dropped the negligent dereliction of duty charge against Davis:

An issue not raised, but addressed by this Court, concerns Specification 5 of Additional Charge I. The appellant was convicted, in accordance with his plea by exceptions and substitutions, of negligent dereliction of duty. The specification at issue, after exceptions and substitutions, states “…was derelict in the performance of those duties in that he negligently conducted ‘sting operations’ against Songtan-area business establishments, as it was his duty to do.” (Emphasis added). This Specification fails to state an offense, and is therefore dismissed.  [USAF Court of Criminal Appeals]

Ultimately the light sentence Davis received has only fed into the conspiracy stories surrounding this case that he received the light sentence in order to keep him quiet about higher level corruption at Osan AFB.  It seems to me that if no one in 51st Security Squadron or the Armed Forced Disciplinary Control Board (AFDCB) was aware of what Davis was doing then at the very least they were derelict in their responsibilities.  I’m not saying his chain of command was in on the corruption, I’m saying they may have been told what was going on and decided not to believe it or were too lazy to investigate it thus leading back to my theory they were derelict.  Davis deserved to go to jail and should have received more time then he received, but I would hope the leadership in his chain of command at Osan AB were at least administratively held responsible for what happened.  Maybe that was done I don’t know, however the only thing that was done publicly was that most members of the town patrol were reassigned to different jobs.  Considering all the unanswered questions and lack of accountability for those involved, is it any wonder why the conspiracy theories surrounding the Osan Shakedown Scandal have never gone away?

Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link: