Army News, news from Iraq, - Army Times

Death penalty option dropped

The Army has dropped the death penalty as a possible sentence if Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman is convicted of rape and murder in the deaths of a 14-year-old girl and three others in Iraq, according to The Associated Press.

Spielman, 22, still faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted with three other soldiers in the attack, said Maj. Don Lobeda, an attorney with the 101st Airborne Division.

His court-martial is set for April 2.

Life without parole for strangling wife

A Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, soldier was sentenced Dec. 14 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering his ex-girlfriend, the mother of their child, The Associated Press said.

Spc. Jeffrey White, 22, was convicted at court-martial of strangling Spc. Felicia LaDuke and then running over her with a car at Mokuleia Beach last year. He will also be dishonorably discharged, reduced in grade and must forfeit all pay and allowances.

LaDuke, 22, had been seeking child support from White for their son, who was 20 months old at the time. White was married and had another child.

Soldier’s status now missing-captured

The whereabouts of a soldier abducted Oct. 23 in Baghdad is still unknown, but he is now listed as “missing-captured.”

A Human Resources Command review board that met Dec. 11 made the change based on evidence that Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie, 41, was, indeed, abducted.

Altaie, an Iraq-born Army Reserve soldier from Ann Arbor, Mich., was abducted by gunmen in a Baghdad neighborhood near the Green Zone while visiting his Iraqi wife at her family’s home.

Spc. pleads guilty for being AWOL

A Fort Lewis, Wash., military police specialist who went absent without leave rather than redeploy to Iraq with her military police unit pleaded guilty Dec. 13 to missing movement and being absent without leave, according to a post press release.

Spc. Suzanne Swift was sentenced to 30 days confinement and a reduction in rank to E-1. The plea agreement enabled her to avoid a federal conviction, more prison time and a punitive discharge.

Swift returned to military control June 14 after being AWOL for five months. She has said she was sexually harassed by members of her unit. Investigators substantiated some of the allegations.

$35,000 owed to deployed sergeant

A Fort Riley, Kan., woman must pay $35,000 in restitution and serve eight years’ probation for stealing from an Army sergeant friend who was deployed to Iraq, The Associated Press reported.

Rachel Lindsey Hendry, 26, was sentenced Dec. 12U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren said if Hendry misses a single monthly payment of not less than $400, she will have to serve 24 months in federal prison.

According to the news release, she agreed in September 2003 to look after the sergeant’s high school daughter for free while the woman was deployed to Iraq.

But while the sergeant was deployed Sept. 3, 2003, to Sept. 25, 2004, Hendry wrote unauthorized checks and used the sergeant’s debit card for more than $18,000; used the sergeant’s car without asking, had an accident and paid for repairs with the sergeant’s money; and stole the sergeant’s ATM/debit card when it arrived in the mail and used it while representing herself as the sergeant.