A military jury at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio found Staff Sgt. Luis Walker guilty
on charges that included rape, aggravated sexual contact and multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault and was sentenced to prison for 20 years despite pleadings from his ownself, wife and parents.
Lackland, where Walker used to be instructor, is house to about 475 instructors and about 35,000 airmen who graduate every year with one in five recruits is female. Walker was facing 28 counts of sexual assault which were later consolidated to 20 by Trial judge Col. Wesley Moore but it made no difference to his punishment.
Walker pleaded to jury in these words: "I ask for my family's sake, for my two boys right there," Walker said, wheeling around and sobbing. "I ask that I am allowed to have a future with them."
According to prosecutors, from October 2010 through January 2011, Walker sexually assaulted or had improper sexual or personal contact with at least 10 female recruits and out of these ten had intercourse with four.
Several of Walker's alleged victims testified during his court-martial, including one who described how Walker lured her into an office and sexually assaulted her on a bed, ignoring her pleas to stop. The Associated Press does not usually identify sexual assault victims.
Five of the women testified Saturday at Walker's sentencing, saying they couldn't sleep or maintain relationships with men after the assaults. They said Walker's actions eroded their trust in authority and affected their performance at work.
Walker was also accused of making flirtatious or sexually suggestive comments, sending inappropriate text messages and sometimes groping his recruits. Prosecutors also accused Walker of forcing five recruits to engage in sexual acts with him by threatening their military careers, and they said he intimidated two of the women into lying about his alleged misconduct.
Walker's wife of eight years, Yeimi Walker, also cried during her testimony. She said her sons didn't understand what was happening to their father and she didn't plan to tell them for as long as she could.
"He's all we have," she said, noting that Walker supports the family as well as her sister and grandparents with his Air Force salary. Speaking directly to the jury, she said "spare at least some of his time in the sentence. I don't want my boys to grow up without a father."
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