This text was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Heart on Disaster Reporting.WASHINGTON — A federal decide sentenced a former commander of t
This text was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Heart on Disaster Reporting.
WASHINGTON — A federal decide sentenced a former commander of the Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Thursday to 2 years in jail for making an attempt to cowl up a drunken struggle with a commissary employee who was later discovered useless within the bay.
Testimony on the trial confirmed that the struggle contained in the official residence of the now retired Navy captain, John R. Nettleton, 54, adopted an evening of ingesting throughout a celebration on the base’s personal officer’s membership. On the get together, the person who died, Christopher Tur, 42, loudly accused Captain Nettleton of getting an affair along with his spouse.
U.S. District Decide Timothy J. Corrigan introduced the sentence, on six legal counts together with obstruction of justice, after an almost daylong listening to in Jacksonville, Fla. In the course of the listening to, Mr. Tur’s mom and siblings emotionally urged a extreme sentence whereas three former navy officers described Captain Nettleton as a veteran fight helicopter pilot who had led a lifetime of integrity.
“Any interval of incarceration is something however a slap on the wrist,” the decide stated in handing down the sentence via a masks within the largest listening to of the pandemic on the courthouse, with some folks collaborating or listening by phone and others watching on a video feed. “Captain Nettleton is being held to account, and I feel it’s acceptable and I hope it may be seen in that gentle.”
Federal prosecutors had sought 37 to 46 months in jail, citing sentencing pointers. The protection legal professionals had urged no time, or house confinement.
Mr. Tur was discovered useless and floating in Guantánamo Bay on Jan. 11, 2015, two days after the struggle and after Captain Nettleton ordered the navy and different residents to mount an intensive seek for him. Mr. Tur had 4 damaged ribs, a bruised brow and probably deadly quantities of Prozac and alcohol in his system. A health worker dominated his dying was attributable to drowning, most likely unintentional.
Earlier than asserting the sentence, the decide stated: “This isn’t a murder case. This isn’t a homicide case. It’s not a case by which Captain Nettleton stands accused or convicted of inflicting the dying of Mr. Tur.”
Relatively, a civilian jury discovered that through the search, Captain Nettleton didn’t report that he had fought with Mr. Tur, denied to a different officer that Mr. Tur had come to his home and lied concerning the affair he had with Lara Tur, who ran the bottom’s social service division.
Mr. Tur’s relations requested the decide to exceed the sentencing pointers and ship a message of accountability to different navy officers concerning the prices of getting drunk, infidelity and mendacity. Some argued that had Captain Nettleton referred to as the bottom police after the struggle, Mr. Tur can be alive.
“What message will it ship to different members of the navy if the sentencing is pointers?” stated Ann Tur, his mom. “For those who’re not extremely ranked, you aren’t entitled to justice? Senior officers within the Navy, the Division of Justice will watch this intently. An excellent man, my child boy, is useless.”
Earlier than sentencing, Captain Nettleton advised the decide that he was “humbled” by the assist of his family and friends, together with his former spouse, and that “I actually don’t know what I might determine in your state of affairs.”
“Command is an honor and a accountability,” he stated. “I failed, and I do know that I’m accountable for my actions.”
Captain Nettleton was convicted on Jan. 17 after a weeklong trial that forged a uncommon highlight on the small-town nature of the bottom of 6,000 folks.
A retired Military colonel who served because the warden of Guantánamo jail, John Bogdan, described Captain Nettleton as a bridge builder who fostered a local weather of respect and cooperation between base residents and the troopers who work on the jail on quick excursions after years of rivalries and acrimony.
“It took quite a lot of effort and took quite a lot of private braveness on John’s half to make the case that the Navy was there to assist the Military,” stated Colonel Bogdan, including that Captain Nettleton despatched the message that “to have a opposite opinion to that was mission ineffective.”
On a private observe, for instance the captain’s integrity, Colonel Bogdan recalled that one night time at Guantánamo the police arrested each their sons, each 16, and Captain Nettleton recused himself from the case and had his second in command, the bottom government officer, conduct an investigation.
Retired Rear Adm. Greg Nosal, a former fighter pilot who now works at Lockheed Martin and who was Captain Nettleton’s commander aboard the usS. Enterprise within the Persian Gulf in 2005, advised the decide that the captain was a person of “integrity, character, charisma” who cared for his folks and stood up for “what’s proper.”
A lawyer for Captain Nettleton, Colby Vokey, requested whether or not his consumer may give up to serve his sentence after Christmas. The decide, who had earlier stated that “the danger of Captain Nettleton committing a criminal offense sooner or later is as near zero as any case I’ve seen,” replied that with the Bureau of Prisons dealing with the pandemic, the U.S. Marshals Service would notify them when the sentence would begin.