Here is the latest example of the weaponization of the Army’s SHARP program:
Sherry Bunn, Meredith’s attorney, said the decision to dismiss was based on evidence obtained during the law enforcement investigation into Meredith’s wife, Col. Ann Meredith, who was fired in March from her command of the 89th Military Police Brigade at Fort Cavazos.
Ann Meredith was fired because she sent a text message that was considered interfering with the investigation into her husband, according to a post to her personal Facebook page. She was disciplined through administrative action, according to Fort Cavazos.
The evidence shows Jon Meredith’s “accuser and her husband, a lieutenant colonel, colluded to create a false sexual-assault allegation against Meredith because the accuser’s husband was upset about the rater comments on his officer evaluation report,” Bunn said. The evidence was discovered in the couple’s cell phone messages from October 2022, she said.
Bunn said she only recently gained access to the evidence from Ann Meredith’s file, but she said the Army has had it for the past year.
You can read more at the link, but Army investigators had this evidence for a year and did not disclose it to the judge. Over the past year COL Meredith has been a regular feature in the news shredding his reputation over what has turned out to be a false accusation. I wonder if any charges will brought against the people that conspired to make the false allegation?
You would think this person would have been on a sex offender registry that would have prevented him from working with children:
Gyeonggi Province’s Office of Education said Tuesday that a person convicted of the sexual assault of a vulnerable middle school student 13 years ago later worked as a teacher at an elementary school, confirming a recent online revelation that sparked public outrage.
The office said the person, however, is currently not working at the school. It refused to give more details, citing the protection of personal information.
An anonymous claim was made last Saturday on an online community, Bobae Dream, that one of the 16 perpetrators of the 2010 sexual attack on the underage girl has become a teacher at an elementary school in Gwanggyo, Gyeonggi Province, while another had become a fireman. “This is where (he or she) crossed the line,” said the post’s writer, who claimed to be an acquaintance of the two.
The 2010 group rape case belatedly sparked public outcry in 2012, when the penalties the offenders received became known — one year of supervision by a probation officer and 40 hours of reformative education. The reason for the leniency was because the offenders were minors at the time of the crime and they had no previous criminal record.
It seems like common sense to keep these sex offenders away from schools:
Cho Doo-soon arrives at a probation center in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, after being released from prison in December 2020. Korea Times photo by Wang Tae-suk
Last month, Park Byung-hwa, 39, a serial rapist who was released after 15 years of imprisonment for sexually assaulting 10 women between December 2002 and October 2007, settled in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. He moved into a residential district where two elementary schools and one high school are located within a three kilometers radius of his home.
Residents have held multiple rallies calling for Park’s eviction. In response, the local government has additionally installed 30 surveillance cameras in the area and is distributing window locking devices and safety alarm gadgets to women living nearby, but such measures have done little to assuage their concerns about possible re-offending by the ex-convict.
Even though registered sex offenders are closely monitored by probation officers, an absence of restrictions blocking heinous criminals from residing near schools and child-related facilities is highly unnerving for residents in the neighborhood.
It is interesting how this complaint comes out after the actor becomes world famous from his role in Squid Game:
“Squid Game” actor O Yeong-su has been indicted on charges of sexual misconduct, judicial officials said Friday.
The Seongnam branch of the Suwon District Prosecutors Office indicted the 78-year-old O without detention Thursday over an allegation that he inappropriately touched the body of a woman in mid-2017, the officials said.
The case dates back to December last year, when the alleged victim filed a complaint against O with police.
Police then closed the case without filing any charge against the actor in April but the prosecution later reopened the investigation at the request of the victim.
It is pretty amazing that this guy only got 15 years for raping 11 children. The odds seem high that at some point he is going to do this again:
Uijeongbu Mayor Kim Dong-geun, sixth from left, joins a protest rally with Uijeongbu citizens and politicians, in front of a facility that child rapist Kim Geun-sik was scheduled to enter, Saturday. The prosecution requested another arrest warrant for Kim on the same day. Screenshot from Kim Dong-geun’s Facebook account
The prosecution requested the court to issue an arrest warrant for serial child rapist Kim Geun-sik, Saturday, two days before he was set to be released from prison, as a woman filed charges that he raped her 16 years ago when she was a minor.
Kim was expected to be released this Monday after serving 15 years in jail on charges of having raped 11 minors.
According to the prosecution, the victim recently recognized Kim’s face as the man who sexually assaulted her 16 years ago, as the media began to report on his release using his mugshot photo. She filed new charges against him with the prosecution.
Prosecutors said they analyzed relevant evidence and proved that Kim had been the attacker in the case.
“Not only is Kim’s crime very serious, but also there’s a possibility of Kim running away as he has no permanent residence at the moment. He could recommit such crimes, or do harm to the victims. That’s why we requested an arrest warrant,” the prosecution said.
If Kim is released Monday, he is scheduled to move into a facility affiliated with the justice ministry that helps released prisoners reintegrate into society, by offering housing as well as psychiatric, educational and other services, similar to what is known in English as a “halfway house.” As Kim was assigned to enter such a facility located in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, residents who have children attending school nearby have expressed their worries.
At least this guy is no longer in classroom and behind bars where he belongs:
An elementary school teacher has been sentenced to seven years in prison for inducing more than 100 teenage girls to film sexually exploitative materials and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old, a court said Monday.
The man, in his 30s, who had taught at an elementary school in Seoul since 2012, was indicted on charges of possessing 1,910 items of sexually abusive content filmed by about 120 teenagers he met through social media between 2015 and 2021.
He was also found to have sexually assaulted then a 13-year-old girl in 2020 at a motel.
If you are a male soldier stationed in Daegu here is something to be aware of:
The Wetzel military housing community in Baumholder, Germany. A new Rand Corp. report found that male soldiers based at Baumholder were more at risk of being sexually assaulted than any at other Army post, citing 2018 data.
Male soldiers based at Baumholder in Germany were more at risk of being sexually assaulted than at any other Army post, according to a service-commissioned study that found two other posts in Germany with similar risks.
A Rand Corp. report released Friday examined sexual assault data at U.S. Army bases worldwide and found elevated risks of male sexual assault at Vilseck and Landstuhl in Germany. (……..)
When adjusting for key factors such as age, marital status and education, LRMC rated as the riskiest, followed by Baumholder and Daegu, South Korea, the report said.
You can read more at the link, but for sexual assaults on women Camp Humphreys and bases in Daegu ranked 7th and 8th across the Army which is really high as well.
If this guy thought he had any chance of getting away with this, he must realize now that he is likely going to jail with the focus on the ROK military after the suicide of ROK Air Force NCO:
An Air Force officer is taken to a military court in Seoul on June 2, 2021, to attend a hearing to review whether an arrest warrant will be issued over his alleged sexual harassment of a female colleague, which caused her to take her own life in May, in this photo provided by the defense ministry.
An Army battalion commander has come under investigation for allegedly sexually harassing three junior members of his base, officials said Thursday.
The case was belatedly known to the media amid huge public outrage over the suicide of a sexually abused female Air Force noncommissioned officer.
According to the officials, the lieutenant colonel of an Army base in Gangwon Province is suspected of forcibly having sexual contact with three female officers and making inappropriate comments repeatedly.
As one of the victims reported the case to her division commander in mid-May, the suspect was relieved of duty, sent to another base and has come under probe by the Army Central Investigation Division, the officials said.
Here is an update on the case of the ROK Air Force NCO who committed suicide after what the ROK media is calling sexual harassment by another NCO. However, the fact that she was groped and forced to touch the body parts of the other NCO is by the American definition actually sexual assault. What makes this incident even worse is that her parents said that one of the superiors pushing her to stop her complaint had harassed her as well in the past:
This photo taken June 2, 2021, shows a temporary altar set up for an Air Force noncommissioned officer at the Armed Forces Capital Hospital in the city of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. She took her own life in May after being sexually harassed by her colleague. (Yonhap)
An Air Force noncommissioned officer, who took her own life after being sexually harassed by a colleague, had suffered similar abuse twice before, a lawyer for her family said Thursday, as two of her superiors were relieved of duties for mishandling the latest case.
Public outrage strengthened amid growing suspicions that her unit attempted to cover up the crime. President Moon Jae-in ordered a thorough investigation and stern punishment of those responsible, saying his heart aches to think of how much despair the victim must have felt.
The two superiors — a warrant officer and a senior master sergeant — were accused of attempting to persuade the victim to reach a settlement with the suspect. One of them was even accused by her family of abusing the victim himself earlier. The suspect in the latest case, surnamed Jang, allegedly groped the victim and forced her to touch his body parts inside a car on their way to the base after a drinking session she was forced to attend in March.
Via a reader tip comes news that an Air Force two-star general is being court martialed for sexual assault:
U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. William T. Cooley USAF
A US Air Force two-star general is facing court-martial in a first for the Air Force, the service said Wednesday.
A sexual assault charge against Air Force Maj. Gen. William Cooley, former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, has been referred to court-martial, Air Force Materiel Command said in a statement.
“After a comprehensive review of all of the evidence from the investigation and the Article 32 preliminary hearing, I’ve informed Maj. Gen. Cooley of my decision to move his case to general court-martial,” Gen. Arnold Bunch, the AFMC commander, said.
