Campbell sgt. pleads to taking band equipment - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Campbell sgt. pleads to taking band equipment

WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. — An Army sergeant who was acquitted in 2010 of killing another man in a drunken driving crash has pleaded guilty to having $32,000 worth of stolen Army band equipment.

Sgt. Riley Ealy, 28, pleaded guilty in Grant Circuit Court on Wednesday to receiving stolen property, said his attorney Paul J. Dickman.

“He stood up and did the right thing,” Dickman said. “He did in fact receive property that he probably should have know was stolen.”

The equipment, including seven guitars, a trombone and a saxophone, was left at Ealy’s father’s Dry Ridge home in September and recovered in October, according to a Kentucky State Police report.

Army investigators told state police detectives that the instruments and electronic equipment were stolen from the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Band at Fort Campbell, where Ealy is based.

Prosecutors will recommend that Ealy receive a five-year sentence when he is sentenced next month, said Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Crawford. Ealy will have to serve serve six months in jail and serve the remainder of the sentence on probation.

Dickman said he expects Ealy, who earned a Purple Heart in Iraq, to receive a general discharge from the Army.

Ealy was acquitted in March 2011 of second-degree manslaughter, first-degree wanton endangerment and drunken driving in the death of 25-year-old James Fry. The accident that killed Fry occurred in September 2009 after a night of drinking while Ealy was on leave from Iraq. Fry was friends with Ealy’s older brother.

During a four-day trial in Kenton Circuit Court, prosecutors tried to prove that Ealy was driving Fry’s Chevrolet Cobalt when the car crashed on Amsterdam Road. Ealy’s defense attorneys claimed that Fry, who was friends with Ealy’s older brother, was driving. The jury deliberated less than an hour before acquitting Ealy, a father of four.

In the current case, Richard Kerns, Ealy’s father; and Ealy’s friend and fellow soldier Evan Johur, 26, of Carlsbad, Calif., were also charged with receiving stolen property. Kerns, 52, was also charged with two counts of possession of a gun by a convicted felon.

During the investigation, troopers noticed that Kerns had several guns that as a convicted felon he was not supposed to have.

Both Kerns and Johur also pleaded guilty Wednesday and will receive the same sentence as Ealy, Crawford said. They all must also pay restitution to the Army, he said. They will be sentenced Feb. 22.

Dickman he said was not aware of any federal charges being filed against Ealy.

Army investigators notified Kentucky State Police in October that the stolen equipment was likely at Kerns’ home on Sherman-Mount Zion Road. State police later learned that Ealy had left the equipment at the home in September.

Some of the items had been taken to Kerns’ friends house in Florence and some to his daughter’s house in Elsmere. All the items were recovered.

Tammie Fry, James Fry’s mother, said Friday that she is glad that Ealy will serve some time in jail.

“At least somebody recognized he’s not the choir boy, respectful, innocent man they all try to portray him as,” she said from her home in Texas. “Six months is better than nothing.”