Pay for Convicts in Military Under Fire
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that the military should stop paying convicted soldiers while their appeals are pending and she introduced legislation to do just that.
Citing Defense Department data, she said that 680 military convicts received more than $1 million in salaries during June, 1994. The convicts included 58 rapists, 164 child molesters and seven murderers.
“I can’t think of a more reprehensible way to spend taxpayer dollars,” said Boxer, who called it “one of the worst examples of government waste I have seen in 20 years of public service.”
One military convict who received pay was Francisco Duran, the Colorado resident arrested last October after firing a hail of bullets at the White House.
While serving in the military in 1990, Duran drove his car into a crowd of people outside a bowling alley in Hawaii. After his conviction for aggravated assault, the military paid Duran $17,537 while he was in prison.
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