Here is another story of a servicemember sent to jail on he said, she said evidence and he didn’t even commit a physical assault:
A hard-charging senior enlisted leader finds himself suddenly sidelined in his mission and his stellar career, ordered home from the war zone amid an investigation into a criminal record arising out of a domestic confrontation a full decade ago.
The probe into the 2006 civilian prosecution of then-Tech Sgt. Eric Soluri highlights the Air Force’s ongoing challenges in fully and fairly holding airmen accountable for their conduct. It’s a responsibility under heightened scrutiny today as all services work to eliminate a reputation for minimizing conduct and policies harmful to women. And it underscores how misconduct by some airmen may fall through the cracks as hundreds are being kicked out of an Air Force cutting end strength by separating those who have had even minor blemishes on their service records.
Whether Soluri’s civilian prosecution escaped the full notice of his chain of command or was ever part of his Air Force record is unclear. However, he quickly recovered from an incident that could have ended his career to a fast track to E-9.
In November 2004, when he was working as an E-6 recruiter in Massachusetts, he threatened to bash in the head of his former girlfriend with a candle jar. The woman, a staff sergeant at Hanscom Air Force Base, told authorities they’d been arguing when he demanded she rub his feet and dance naked for him. She refused. Soluri was convicted in a civilian courtroom two years later of threatening to commit a crime. He served 14 days of a six-month jail sentence and was court-ordered to attend a batterers program and undergo a psychological evaluation.
His career should have been over. Soluri himself expected as much, and unsuccessfully petitioned the judge to remove the jail time from his record. But he remained in the Air Force, and just months after he walked out of jail, in June 2007, he was selected for promotion to master sergeant.Soluri was promoted two more times, to the top one percent of the enlisted force, at a time when the slightest infraction — failed PT tests or administrative discipline, for example — has ended the careers of thousands of airmen. [Air Force Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but Soluri denied what the girlfriend claimed:
When interviewed by the detective in January 2005, Soluri denied the allegations. He said the woman made up the story because Soluri had threatened to tell the staff sergeant’s leadership about her alleged drinking problem. Soluri also accused his former girlfriend of striking his son from a previous marriage.
Morrison reported those allegations to local child and family services officials, but the matter was dropped.
So the only evidence used to convict the NCO was the girlfriend’s testimony about a threat and he did not even physically assault her while his testimony about her committing child abuse was dropped. I do not know who is telling the truth, heck they both could be lying, but this is another perfect example of how hard these domestic violence cases are to adjudicated. That is why his leadership at the time likely let him stay in the Air Force instead of taking action to kick him out.
What I am wondering is what Soluri answered on this security clearance background check in regards to whether he was convicted of committing a crime. If he lied about that then he should be charged. Even if he was honest about his prior conviction and did nothing wrong to cover it up, his career is likely over after all this negative publicity.
