Posted on 03/14/2014 7:16:25 PM PDT by markomalley
An American airman has been charged in the death of a U.S. Navy petty officer who was found dead in the passenger seat of a car in Kaiserslautern during a traffic stop in Germany in December.
"On March 10, 2014, charges of murder and other violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice were preferred against U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt Sean M. Oliver, 34, of American Forces Network – Europe,” 86th Airlift Wing spokeswoman Sandra Archer wrote in an emailed statement Friday to Stars and Stripes.
Oliver, a broadcast engineer for AFN at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, was charged with assaulting and strangling U.S. Petty Officer 2nd Class Dmitry Chepusov, who also worked for AFN. Oliver was also charged with obstructing justice and making false statements about Chepusov’s death, according to Archer.
Oliver, 34, was stopped by German police early on the morning of Dec. 14 for driving erratically and was later determined to have been legally intoxicated, according to a German police spokesman. During the stop, the police discovered Chepusov unresponsive in the car's passenger seat. Medical personnel later pronounced Chepusov dead at the scene.
A German autopsy concluded that Chepusov died of “force to the neck,” and a German judge charged Oliver with manslaughter before he was remanded to U.S. custody.
The U.S. military did not place Oliver in pretrial confinement until days later. Initially, according to a December statement from the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, the suspect — now known to be Oliver — was remanded to his unit by his commander.
Oliver later landed in pretrial confinement, where he spent more than two months without charge.
“An Article 32 hearing will be scheduled to inquire into the truth of the matters set forth in the charges and recommend whether the charges should be adjudicated at a court-martial,” Archer wrote. “People are reminded that the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty."
ROTFLAMO!!!
S 2 funny ....
Land stool?
LOL!
I swear !!!
Germany!
Then the question is which one is gay and which one is straight? I really could go either way.
k-town. what the common bier there, schultheiss?
K-town is what we called it.
Odds are going 3:1 that it was a fag scorned or rejected.
Typically, host nations will turn US on US crimes back to the military even if the crime occurred off post. They would not want to bother German taxpayers with the costs of a trying an American service member for the murder of another American service member. Had the victim been German, I can pretty much assure you, the Germans would have retained the right to prosecute. While I agree this has all the makings of a homosexual love spat gone wrong, I don't think there was any lavender mafia pressure on the Germans to turn the suspect back to the US. There will be ample pressure from that crowd however, to keep the trial details out of the press if things are as they appear on the surface.
It appears that the German prosecutor was a little bit reluctant to give this one over to the Americans. “According to Card, the German prosecutor’s office is reluctant to fully release the case,,,,” with the American response of not accepting the German evidence and not bothering to even arrest the guy until publicity started to build.
Non sequitur of the week.
“A German autopsy concluded that Chepusov died of “force to the neck,” and a German judge charged Oliver with manslaughter before he was remanded to U.S. custody.”
Spent two tours in Germany. It was common when US Service Members committed crimes in Germany to turn them over to the US Military. The Germans saved themselves the expense of trial and confinement plus the sentence the Military Courts were usually more severe than a German court would impose.
We also have a daughter born at Landstuhl. Born when we were at Zweibrucken. A couple of weeks after her birth I went down to the K Town German courthouse to get her a German birth certificate. The was a young Soldier there who was also getting his son a German birth certificate. As it turns out the Soldier was himself born at Landstuhl 25 years or so earlier and also got his own birth certificate.
Thought that was pretty cool.
BBK, Barbarossa Kaiser Pils, otherwise known as Bad Beer from Kaiserslautern.
Schultheiss is a Berlin beer.
Parkbrau, very good beer BTW, was from both Zweibrucken and Pirmasens. We lived in military housing down in Zwei about 2 miles from the Parkbrau brewery. Good beer, good times!!
This whole post is bringing back lots of good memories for me.
I really could go either way....Me,tooo, thilly (wink, wink).
“A German autopsy concluded that Chepusov died of “force to the neck,”....ASRD (Accidental Sexual Related Death?) Investigated four of them in 78-79-80. Actually had a hard from laughing, but I’m sick and still smirking.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.