$37 theft could cost his career - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

$37 theft could cost his career

A lieutenant colonel said because he suffers from kleptomania he should not be court-martialed for shoplifting last year at Fort Benning, Ga.

Lt. Col. Rodney Page, a 28-year Army veteran, admits to stealing $37 worth of challenge coins at the post exchange, but he blames the Army for mistakenly reducing medication he takes to curb his urge to steal.

“That impulse is so strong that it just overrides your common sense,” said Page, 58, recalling the theft. “I am ethical, even though I have this problem. I’ve never taken anything from anyone I know. You can leave money on the table; I’m never going to touch it.”

Page said he would prefer to submit to administrative discipline and preserve his retirement benefits.

Kleptomania is a rare and embarrassing impulse control disorder characterized by the theft of items regardless of value, with little or no premeditation. There is a sense of guilt or shame associated with the thefts.

“I would never plan anything before showing the impulse to take something,” said Page. “Afterward, I would say, ‘God, that was stupid.’ I would just feel so bad.”

A prior conviction for shoplifting is the “main factor” in Maj. Gen. Mike Ferriter’s decision to court-martial Page, said Army spokeswoman Brenda Donnell. In the 2008 case, Page received 60 days’ confinement, fines and a reprimand.

Page was accused of stealing sandals and flags from a PX at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in July 2008. He fled apprehension and was tackled in public by soldiers pursuing him.

Donnell declined to comment on Page’s medical condition, citing privacy laws, but Army medical records supplied by Page’s attorney confirm that the incident led to the diagnosis that Page was a kleptomaniac.

Prior to the incident, Page was a logistician in charge of shipping container management at Camp Arifjan. In a 2008 performance evaluation, his battalion commander credited him with saving the Army nearly $3 million in container fees and recommended his promotion to colonel “immediately.”

Mental health stigma

Page’s attorney, Scot Sikes, said that Page is being penalized for a mental disorder, even as senior Army leaders work to remove the stigma of more common mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I think that my rank is really hurting me because they don’t expect someone of my rank to have this problem,” said Page. “If I can help someone else down the road because of my case — so that the Army looks at things a little different, so that they look at a different punishment.”

Sikes said that legally, kleptomania — like pyromania — cannot be used as a defense at trial. Yet he called on Ferriter to consider Page’s disorder, proceed administratively and allow Page to retire with dignity.

“When they say he stole again, my reply is ‘Yes, precisely,’Ÿ” said Sikes. “He’ll probably steal again in his lifetime; it’s just a sad fact.”

“What are you going to accomplish by prosecuting this man again? All you’re going to do is unnecessarily expose him to the prospect of losing his retirement, and there’s a simple explanation here,” said Sikes. “I’m not putting it all on the medication mistake, but at least we have a reasonable explanation for how he fell off the wagon.”

According to Page’s medical records, Page told doctors he has a “long history of … impulsively and inappropriately taking items from stores” during stressful periods. These thefts occurred “both as a civilian and while on active duty.”

Page, through his attorney, declined to discuss previous shoplifting incidents.

Dosage essential

According to records of Page’s Article 32 hearing, psychiatrists prescribed him a succession of anti-anxiety drugs to reduce his urge to steal until they found that 150 mg of Zoloft per day was the most effective.

Dr. Lawrence Correnti, a colonel and staff psychiatrist at the post’s Martin Army Community Hospital, testified that Page received a two-month supply at 150 mg before he left Kuwait last January. But in March, a battalion doctor refilled the prescription at 100 mg per day without explaining why.

“The primary care doctor would be completely out of their lane in making any change,” Correnti said at the hearing. “We at the hospital made a mistake in [Page’s] treatment that he is not responsible for — well, that he bears little responsibility for — and that mistake may have contributed to the incident that occurred.”

In June 2009, Page was arrested at the Fort Benning PX. Security guards spotted him acting “kind of hyper … putting his hands in his pockets,” before he checked out without paying for five challenge coins he had pocketed.

The arresting officer, noting Page’s rank, and that he walked with a cane, opted not to handcuff Page and he let him drive his own car to the Provost Marshal’s Office.

In spite of the Article 32 investigating officer’s recommendation for an administrative separation, Page faces a full court-martial in February for larceny and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

“I was devastated,” Page said. “I thought that that was all behind me and that day will never come again, that I would finish my career and retire. I lost sleep; I thought, ‘How could this happen?’Ÿ”

Page is now assigned to a warrior transition unit at Fort Benning.

Page said that in the months leading up to the theft, he had experienced an anxiety and fogginess that he now attributes to the medication mix-up. He alerted his squad leader, but he said that he was ignored — one of several medical care “disconnects” he has encountered in the warrior transition battalion.

“If they had sent me to mental health, this never would have happened. If they had me on the right dosage, this never would have happened because I haven’t had any episode since I got back on the medication,” said Page. “It’s been six months and I’ve been fine. I was in the store yesterday, and nothing, but I’m at the right medication.”

“I believe that if anyone of these systems would have responded to my cry for help, I wouldn’t be sitting here today,” Page said.

Prior to his arrest, Page was due for surgery in August to replace his arthritic right hip, but hospital administrators are delaying the surgery until the case is resolved, he said.

“The system let me down,” Page said. “The Army has a way of eating its own, and I’m one they want to gobble up.”