Lt Col Wilkerson sexual assault case

[USMCAirWinger]

It's not an officer vs enlisted comment. It's a lack of equal application of military "justice".

[Hueypilot]

If he was trialed in a civilian court, there is no way he would have been found innocent. If a jury of all officers who are much more socially conservative than the average American found him guilty, the odds of him being found innocent in a civilian court would be slim.

I know this may be hard for some people to grasp but in our justice system you aren't supposed to be "found innocent". You are innocent and it's the prosecution's job to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you're guilty. Given media reaction and other comments I've seen in various cases in the media, it doesn't surprise me that many people see it the other way around, which is why despite the conviction by a jury, there is still a process of judicial review....to ensure our justice system was followed correctly. I am fairly confident that reversing jury findings by a GCMCA is pretty rare and only exercised in cases that have substantial doubts.

It's not an officer vs enlisted comment. It's a lack of equal application of military "justice".

I know enlisted troops feel that officers get away with stuff...I was enlisted for a while. But I know for a fact that officers can get f$cked over too, it's just rarely ever publicized.

[Guest one]

I agree with you but looking at everything, the only way you can have a reasonable doubt about his guilt is if you think the woman is a liar. That is plain and simple. She said that while she was drunk, she woke up with a guy touching her in her sleep. A very simple story which she stuck to. Any of her inaccuracies regarding what time she slept or what phone calls she made could be because she was drunk or traumatized. It is his word versus her word.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe her story but I find it hard to believe so many people felt like this was a situation filled with reasonable doubt. The Lt Col failed a polygraph, talked about being drugged, and had other discrepancies with what he was saying. If you take away the discrepancies then reasonable doubt would be much more understanding.

Edited April 18, 2013 by one

[Hueypilot]

People can fail polygraphs talking about totally truthful things...they aren't reliable. You can ask "why would she lie" all day long, the point is, sometimes people do. I had an ex that pulled that crap all the time, and while we were divorcing even threatened to tell the cops I beat her.

I was advised by a legal friend to take those threats seriously, because even there was zero evidence of abuse, at a minimum I'd still wind up in the lock-up for a while until the legal system did its thing.

My commander caught her telling him a bunch of lies too, and he even remarked that he couldn't believe someone would lie like that, but that's what some people do to protect #1 or whatever it is they perceive they need to lie for.

I'm not saying the accuser in this case did lie. But there's no hard proof that he lied either, at least not about anything central to the case.

Most people you can take at face value. But I've learned the hard way that not everyone acts with honorable intent.

"She said, he said". There's a reason why those cases that only rely on the word of the parties involved are tough to convict, because barring a smoking gun or a slip up that convincingly demonstrates guilt, it's a long road to meeting the legal requirement for a conviction.

You put a lot of trust in juries. They've convicted innocent people before. And if they couldn't find OJ guilty, this man needed to walk.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Hueypilot

[Guest one]

If you went into sexual assault cases with the mind set that the victim could possibly be a liar so there is reasonable doubt, there would be a lot of guilty sex offenders found not guilty. It is a reasonable doubt. The victim is a witness to the crime and that is evidence enough to convict. Any victim could lie but without a valid reason to, how could you think this constitutes reasonable doubt? The jury obviously thought the victim was telling the truth. We do not know anything about the victim so we just have to take the General's word for it.

Edited April 18, 2013 by one

[Azimuth]

Reducing a sentence and overturning a conviction are very different. The Lt Col will not even have to register as a sex offender. It is as if he was perfectly innocent. If this exact situation happened to a SSgt instead of a Col select, the conviction would not be overturned or even looked at by the General.

I am not saying that this doesn't make sense. You would think a Colonel has earned more benefit of the doubt than someone who has been in for five years but let's not pretend it doesn't make a drastic difference.

You're right, the General wouldn't of looked at the conviction of a SSgt, the SSgt's Wing Commander would've been the convening authority. However in this case there was no physical evidence collected, and it was a tale of she said/they said. A SSgt probably isn't going to afford to retain Frank Spinner as a defense lawyer as well.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Azimuth

[Fuzz]

If you went into sexual assault cases with the mind set that the victim could possibly be a liar so there is reasonable doubt, there would be a lot of guilty sex offenders found not guilty. It is a reasonable doubt. The victim is a witness to the crime and that is evidence enough to convict. Any victim could lie but without a valid reason to, how could you think this constitutes reasonable doubt? The jury obviously thought the victim was telling the truth. We do not know anything about the victim so we just have to take the General's word for it.

Here's the problem with your whole narrative, you keep saying she had no reason to lie, you don't know if she had a reason to make it up. Plus turning down offers to take you home sounds fishy from the get go. Some women are just batshit crazy and don't need a reason.

[Day Man]

I'm sure no one here has ever let a female stranger spend the night in their house. /sarcasm

BQZip?

[Fud]

He felt like he was untouchable and was correct.

While I don't know Roscoe, I watched the videos and read all of the documents on the FOIA page. I can guess that you didn't read any of it, because I saw a man who was not arrogant in the video. He was surprised, concerned, and very worried, but always maintained his innocense.

If he was trialed in a civilian court, there is no way he would have been found innocent.

I don't understand your basis for this, and I don't agree with you. Civilian courts in major crimes require the jury to unanimously convict someone of a charge. In an General CM, it takes two thirds to convict. The only time it is required to be unanimous in a GCM is when the panel is looking to execute a military member.

It's not an officer vs enlisted comment. It's a lack of equal application of military "justice".

I don't think so, and again, I don't think you have read the entire page of FOIA documents. However, I don't think the average GCMCA would spend this much time deliberating on whether a conviction would stand or not in all of their cases, but I have no data to base that on. However, I know GCMCA's take their roles very seriously.

I agree with you but looking at everything, the only way you can have a reasonable doubt about his guilt is if you think the woman is a liar.

Again, not true at all. The standard of proof for most criminal court proceedings is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. One could say, "I don't think this could have happened" due to a number of factors other than her being a liar. You also say the Lt Col failed a polygraph examination. There is no way anyone can fail a polygraph. The technician that gives it to a suspect is hired by the government. They can swing either way to say someone is "deceptive", but nothing from a polygraph is admissable in court except a confession derived from one.

[Guest one]

Here's the problem with your whole narrative, you keep saying she had no reason to lie, you don't know if she had a reason to make it up. Plus turning down offers to take you home sounds fishy from the get go. Some women are just batshit crazy and don't need a reason.

Obviously, I don't know whether she had or didn't have a reason to lie but the jury probably had the reasoning skills needed to make that call. These were officers on the jury. Not that officers can't make mistakes but I have more faith in them than the general public. The General stands by his decision and had all the facts unlike us. The General knew what was at stake when he made his decisions so we know he feels strongly about this. My point is, the ability of a victim to lie is not cause to find someone not guilty. We are not talking about not presuming someone is innocent prior to conviction, we are talking about throwing away what the victim says just because she it is possible for her to lie and has no one to corroborate her story.

What is more fishy? The woman turning down a ride home or the Lt Col insinuating he might have been drugged during questioning? I trust the General on this one but it isn't surprising the Lt Col was found guilty. If there was a retrial he would probably be found guilty again.

This type of situation is terrifying for any man because of the huge disadvantage a man has in court. I am a big Lakers fan and when Kobe was accused of rape I was shocked at the damage one bitch could do to someone's life. I mean...does Kobe really need to rape someone? It had to be obvious to anyone with common sense that he was innocent but she still ed his life over and got a check in the mail when all was said and done. She even made him say a statement saying that she was right and he was wrong.

Edited April 18, 2013 by one

[Azimuth]

There was a Brig Gen that was going to testify against the credibility of the woman. I think her reason to lie is the fact she had a history of lying in the past. Also, and there's nothing illegal about it, but the Lt Col's jury didn't have one rated officer on it. However there were three or four medical officers on the jury. The woman was a civilian PA in the MDG at Aviano. Was Wilkerson really judged by a jury of his peers? We'll never know.

[Guest one]

While I don't know Roscoe, I watched the videos and read all of the documents on the FOIA page. I can guess that you didn't read any of it, because I saw a man who was not arrogant in the video. He was surprised, concerned, and very worried, but always maintained his innocense.

I don't understand your basis for this, and I don't agree with you. Civilian courts in major crimes require the jury to unanimously convict someone of a charge. In an General CM, it takes two thirds to convict. The only time it is required to be unanimous in a GCM is when the panel is looking to execute a military member.

I don't think so, and again, I don't think you have read the entire page of FOIA documents. However, I don't think the average GCMCA would spend this much time deliberating on whether a conviction would stand or not in all of their cases, but I have no data to base that on. However, I know GCMCA's take their roles very seriously.

Again, not true at all. The standard of proof for most criminal court proceedings is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. One could say, "I don't think this could have happened" due to a number of factors other than her being a liar. You also say the Lt Col failed a polygraph examination. There is no way anyone can fail a polygraph. The technician that gives it to a suspect is hired by the government. They can swing either way to say someone is "deceptive", but nothing from a polygraph is admissable in court except a confession derived from one.

I am going off the assumption that the jury believes the alleged victim because her testimony sounded sincere and her not having anything brought up in court that would make someone question her credibility. If a group of Air Force officers believe the victim over the Air Force pilot that has been in for over 25 years, I think the Lt Col would have a very hard time getting found not guilty by a civilian court. All of this assuming both juries believe the woman.

I don't know how you would find him not guilty without thinking the woman is a liar. If the jury says "I don't think this could happen", that is the same as saying the woman is not telling the truth. She said she woke up with him touching her inappropriately. Either he is not telling the truth or she is not telling the truth. Their stories contradict each other. I suppose a juror could think that she was just dreaming the whole think but that is far from reasonable.

I really doubt the Lt Col was just an innocent man sleeping in his bed but he may have been. If he was completely 100% honest, he really handled the situation strangely.

What do you think about the Lt Col's hinting at possibly being drugged. That is pretty weird to me.

I know a polygraph is not accurate but it also doesn't look that great. Maybe he should not have done one.

We only know one side of the story. It isn't possible to make an accurate assessment without hearing the victim and knowing her side of the story more clearly.

ETA: I really doubt he would jeopardize his whole life for some 50 year old bar slut. If this was some 25 year old, smoking hot bar slut it would be somewhat different. I think the General did the right thing. I just would hate to be wrong. It would be pretty ed up if the woman was telling the truth and this happened.

Edited April 18, 2013 by one

[WABoom]

The interview is tough to watch. The OSI agent really buttered the LtCol up before reading him his rights, smooth move fellas. Who knows what happened, I just hope that if he is innocent, I thank god LtGen Franklin did the right thing by overturning this decision. He said she said is so tough when there is obviously no physical evidence and a possible history of skeptical behavior from the alleged victim. This whole thing just makes me feel dirty. With the on-going scandal at Lackland AFB, I think this man was caught up more in the attitude that we need to do something about sexual assaults, rather than seeking justice. Just my opinion.

Edited April 18, 2013 by WABoom

[Smokin]

The Lt Col will not even have to register as a sex offender. It is as if he was perfectly innocent.

Yup, as if. Gen Franklin decided that there was reasonable doubt, as the jury should have. That means he is innocent. Not 'as if he was', but actually innocent. And your 'perfectly innocent' already betrays your bias. The wording should be perfectly guilty, because if he is not perfectly guilty, then he is innocent. If you can actually read the material available on that FOIA website and still think beyond any reasonable doubt that he is guilty, then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. Her story just does not add up and contradicts multiple other people, including her friend who should have a natural bias in her favor.

One - You cannot walk into a court case and NOT think that everyone is possibly a liar. You have two completely different stories as to what happened, so someone is lying. If you start out with the assumption that the victim cannot possibly be a liar, you might as well not have a trial and just execute the accused on the spot. A complete lack of evidence in itself should put some doubt in your mind. Yes, you will have people who are actually guilty go free, and that is terrible, but less terrible than innocent people in prison.

[Guest one]

What type of evidence to you think is normally left behind when two people are in a room and one accuses the other of groping them? How does this lack of physical evidence put doubt in your mind? It amazes me for people to think that the victim has more to gain from lying than the person accused. In this situation, the victim didn't really have anything to gain. I am not saying she didn't lie...She could be crazy and decided to lie but it is not like she was after money or fame.

He was found guilty by a jury! A jury of military officers found him guilty. A jury with all the information came to a different conclusion than you. The General overturned this and now he is innocent. My quote you took out of context was me comparing someone's example of shortening someone's prison sentence and changing a conviction. Very different things. So when I said he was "perfectly innocent" I was highlighting that just because someone decided to let you out of prison early, as in the E-9's case, it is not the same thing as what happened to the Lt Col. The Lt Col did 4 or 5 months but he was found innocent by the General.

The FOIA does not give justice to the victim's side of the story. As I have said a few times now, I trust the General's judgment. I don't believe the woman but I also think that the Lt Col was not 100% truthful. If he was 100% honest he probably could have saved himself a lot of problems. I really thought that his story was contradicted by some of his friends and when he was talking about how he might have been drugged was very strange. These things were not highlighted in the General's memo. I do not think the Lt Col is guilty but do not think it would be easy to call. You guys make it seem like it is common sense and you didn't even get to here what the victim had to say.

Edited April 18, 2013 by one

[17D_guy]

The victim is a witness to the crime and that is evidence enough to convict.

Wat?

Copy, you've never dealt with bat-shit crazy females.

Was selected for jury duty in a domestic abuse case. Got to the interview portion and Prosecution asked if I believed a woman would lie about being abused. Chuckled, said yes, was excused.

I was firmly on your side until I read the Gen's letter and perused the FOIA docs (finals week for the Master's...got no time). When the friend she had take her to the hospital called her a liar and asked for clemency for the LtCol I almost vomited.

EDIT to add

A jury with all the information came to a different conclusion than you.

No, the jury was shown chopped video of the LtCol's interview. There were other bits of evidence not allowed either.

Edited April 18, 2013 by 17D_guy

[Hacker]

If he was trialed in a civilian court, there is no way he would have been found innocent.

You're right -- because it never would have even gone to trial in the civilian system due to the lack of supporting evidence. The civilian court system is so burdened as is that they won't bother wasting time and money on a trial where a conviction isn't a slam-dunk. The rest of the US criminal justice system doesn't have the same hair-trigger attitude toward anything remotely sexual assault related as the military -- and the USAF in particular -- does.

BTW, citizens on trial are not "found innocent"; they are presumed innocent, and "found guilty".

[Hueypilot]

If you went into sexual assault cases with the mind set that the victim could possibly be a liar so there is reasonable doubt, there would be a lot of guilty sex offenders found not guilty. It is a reasonable doubt. The victim is a witness to the crime and that is evidence enough to convict. Any victim could lie but without a valid reason to, how could you think this constitutes reasonable doubt? The jury obviously thought the victim was telling the truth. We do not know anything about the victim so we just have to take the General's word for it.

You assume someone needs a real reason to lie. I'll submit that the reason may only exist in that persons head. I gave the example of my divorce because she would often lie with no real motive other than in her own reality she truly was a victim. She was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder during our breakup. I was always civil and people who know me know I'm not the confrontational type, yet she'd consistently paint me as a monster to her friends and even my leadership, because in her mind...well, even I don't know what was going on in there. Lucky for me she got caught lying by my leadership red-handed and crossed a few lines with them, but I cringe to wonder if she hadn't been caught in a lie. Again, she had no real reason to make sh1t up, but she did.

I can't say that the woman in this story is like that or not, but simply saying "she has no reason to lie" is conjecture in itself. As someone else stated, it appears you've never dealt with a bat-sh1t crazy female.

Edited to remove multiple repeat posts...

Edited April 18, 2013 by Hueypilot

[Guest one]

You really don't think it would go to trial in a civilian court? It doesn't seem like there was a reason to lie that was obvious. I am not saying that there wasn't but it is very obvious in the court transcripts that the defense failed to show any major credibility issues. Did you guys read what she said on the witness stand and the cross examination? It starts on page 193 at the link below.

https://www.foia.af.m...-130403-023.pdf

Her story really wasn't that inconsistent and she had a reason for each inconsistency. She says that she didn't want a ride home because everyone was drinking and they were only willing to drop her off at the gate. She said she didn't know how far it was from the gate to TLF and she didn't want to walk around base drunk and get in trouble. That makes sense to me.

The people on the jury were Lt Cols and Cols. Highly educated professionals believed her story and didn't believe his. I think the General did his job and his conclusions makes sense. I just don't understand how so many people believe that there was no merit in this going to court. Does her story sound that surreal to you? I know you are presumed innocent but lets get real here, in a case where it is he said she said, the jury is going to decide if they think he is lying or if she is lying. If the jury thinks she is lying, he is innocent. If the jury thinks he is lying, he is guilty. What if they were both lying but he was just not as good of a liar and it looked obvious to the jury? It is really not that far of a stretch to believe the wife walked in on them messing around and the victim got embarrassed and decided to make up this crazy story. That is a motive why she would lie. In the defense's story, there is absolutely no reasonable conclusion to why she would lie.

The General's memo highlights all the reasons why he made his decision to overturn the conviction. He didn't have to do that and I respect him for writing it but the prosecution could probably write a memo to highlight all of the inconsistencies on the Lt Cols side. I happen to believe he didn't belong on the sex offenders list or belong behind bars but that doesn't mean the accusations didn't have any merit. I know that many women have made false accusations in the past but all you can think about is this case. In this case the prosecution did a better job than the defense and that is probably because the defense was all screwed up by some of the things the Lt Col said during his OSI questioning.

Edited April 18, 2013 by one

[HU&W]

You really don't think it would go to trial in a civilian court? It doesn't seem like there was a reason to lie that was obvious. I am not saying that there wasn't but it is very obvious in the court transcripts that the defense failed to show any major credibility issues. Did you guys read what she said on the witness stand and the cross examination?

Extreme drunkenness and being asleep at the time of the thing you are witnessing are major credibility issues.

Edited April 18, 2013 by HU&W

[Smokin]

They failed to show significant credibility issues because her past was basically excluded. For all the jury knew, she was a pure as the driven snow virgin when she arrived at that party. His past, on the other hand, was dealt with in detail to drag his character through the mud by cherrypicking examples from his life; just like you got upset at me for doing from your post. There are multiple letters that show up in the FOIA that were excluded from the trial that bring her credibility into question. I don't know what her reason was for lying, but she did. Maybe her contract on base was about to expire and she was worried she was going to get the boot. Maybe she just hated pilots, who knows, who cares; but she did lie. She lied about when she passed out, she lied about how she got out of the house, she lied about what the room looked like, and I'm sure she lied about what actually mattered that night. All of that is part of the evidence that I mentioned and it all was in favor of the accused. Do I expect DNA type evidence like there should be in a rape case when she only accused him of severe groping? No, but I do expect evidence like the above and it seems to have largely been excluded from the trial.

I don't blame the jury; they were not given all the information. I blame our court system that allows exclusion of relevant information. Thankfully, we have a backup oversight that the civilian courts don't.

[Disco_Nav963]

Motive-wise... Don't believe this was ever suggested by any of the material in the clemency package, but suppose she was pissed that the MDG female captain was bedding Col Ostovich that night instead of her (as the testimony indicated): perhaps she wanted to dime Ostovich out for a UPR but didn't want to endanger the renewal of her contract by bringing attention to the fact that she had been kicked out of the IG's house for being drunk and erratic—so she reports a made up story about being groped to immunize herself, knowing it will bring all kinds of attention to the rated officers' activities (including Ostovich). Only thing that makes me uncertain is that she initially filed a restricted report.

I never thought she needed a motive per-se... Being a 49 year old civilian divorcee female MDG employee at an overseas base makes one a prime suspect to be batshit crazy IMO. All I know is that two of her friends from that night thought she was lying, she lied about being asleep from 0030 to 0400, she said the perp was a SNCO without a moustache, and claimed to have been digitally penetrated while her belt was on and her pants were buttoned and zipped.

[Guest one]

Menopause is a prime motive.

[flyusaf83]

I predict we will see more and more of these types of cases, because of the current climate. I can't go a week without some briefing from the SARC about how we all need to be on the lookout for sexual assault, and how women need to defend themselves from men who want nothing but to rape them, and how they ALWAYS will believe the victim... blah, blah, blah.

We've created a hyper-sensitive atmosphere with this type of thing. Any wiff of indiscretion, whether credible or not, will end careers and ruin lives. Liars like the Lt Col's "victim" will automatically get 6-9 angry chicks from Congress immediately behind them, even when they are clearly lying. The truth doesn't matter anymore.

[M2]

If he was trialed in a civilian court, there is no way he would have been found innocent. If a jury of all officers who are much more socially conservative than the average American found him guilty, the odds of him being found innocent in a civilian court would be slim.

I know many of you found it hard to believe a jury could find him guilty because the evidence was circumstantial but when a "victim" is testifying against you and there is no clear motive to why they would lie, that is not considered circumstantial. I am sure the defense tried to question her credibility but the jury obviously felt she was credible.

Really? And your expertise in civilian criminal court matters stem from what?

Quit talking out your ass, he would have stood the same chance of being acquitted (the correct term) in a civilian court as he did before a courts martial.

Any more comments such as these and I will have to assume you are deliberately trolling, at which point I will take appropriate action. Understand?