Judge: Slain O-3’s widow can get Army records - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Judge: Slain O-3’s widow can get Army records

A campaign by the widow of a slain Army captain to obtain records related to her husband’s killing in Iraq will go forward after a judge denied the Army’s attempt to have the case dropped.

The Army will also have to explain why it will not release the entire record of the court-martial of Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez of Troy, N.Y., who was found not guilty of the premeditated murders of Capt. Phillip Esposito of Suffern, N.Y., and 1st Lt. Louis Allen of Milford, Pa.

The two men were killed in a series of explosions in Tikrit, Iraq, in early June 2005. Within days, prosecutors charged Martinez with planting a claymore mine in Esposito’s window and lobbing grenades.

A military jury acquitted Martinez in December 2008, despite testimony by witnesses that he had threatened to kill Esposito. The widows of the two men said the investigation into the deaths was so compromised that it resulted in the acquittal.

Siobhan Esposito filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Army denied her Freedom of Information Act request for full records of the court-martial and only furnished partial records with names of the trial judge, attorneys and witnesses redacted.

Esposito says she wants access to the records to learn from them and press the Army to make changes to its policies to prevent tragedies like the death of her husband and Allen, as well as the acquittal of the man she believes killed her husband.

In response to her complaint, the Army said it was not legally required to provide unredacted audio recordings of the court-martial, and urged the judge to dismiss the case as well as Esposito’s request that she be awarded court costs and reasonable attorney fees in the action.

Judge John Bates denied the Army’s request for dismissal, saying it has yet to make its case.

It asked both parties — Esposito and the Army — to confer and proposed a briefing schedule no later than March 25.

Esposito said the Army’s effort to have her case dismissed did not surprise her. Esposito and Barbara Allen, the widow of 1st. Lt. Louis Allen, have had several disputes with the Army.

Rather, she said, there was another element in the Army’s response that “shocked and offended” her.

In a civil action like the one Esposito is engaged in, the defendant is required to answer complaints by the plaintiff by either accepting or denying them.

That helps the judge to dispose of the case.

In response to Esposito’s statement that she was the widow of Capt. Phillip Esposito who was murdered in Iraq, the Army responded that it would admit only that she was the widow of Phillip Esposito “who died while in his office and on active military duty in Tikrit, Iraq.”

Esposito said that was tantamount to denying that her husband was murdered. The Army did not respond to a request for comment.

“The Army is essentially rewriting the facts in order to hide from the galling truth that my husband’s death was needless and preventable,” said Esposito, describing the Army’s response as dishonest and insulting.

“I’m frustrated and angry that I have to argue with the Army that Phillip was actually murdered,” she said.

Since Martinez’s acquittal, the Army has not identified any other suspect or charged anyone else in the killings, which had been considered to be the first incident of fragging in the Iraq war.