McKinney Demoted, Reprimanded by Army

Sgt. Maj. Gene C. McKinney escaped a possible prison sentence Monday when a military jury decided he should be demoted a pay grade and reprimanded for obstruction of justice, concluding his sexual-misconduct court-martial.

McKinney, 47, once the Army’s highest-ranking enlisted man, stood at attention and showed no emotion when the sentence was announced at Ft. Belvoir, Va., in suburban Washington. He will be allowed to retire honorably--which he is expected to do immediately--although the demotion will slice $875 a month off his pension.

The sentence was far lighter than Army prosecutors had sought earlier Monday during a half-day of testimony in the penalty phase of his trial. Prosecutors had asked that he be imprisoned for six months and reduced to the lowest rank, buck private.

But analysts viewed the sentence as consistent with the verdict that the same jury had returned Friday, when McKinney was exonerated of all 18 sex-offense charges and convicted on a single obstruction-of-justice charge for encouraging one alleged victim to lie to investigators.

“This is not surprising--the handwriting was on the wall,” said Nancy Duff Campbell, head of the National Women’s Law Center. “For the sake of all women in the military, I can only hope this kind of jury decision is an isolated case.”

She said the sentence “sends the same message as last week’s verdict. It’s hard enough for women to come forward with complaints like this, only to find that the system doesn’t work for them.”

Before his sentence, McKinney took the witness stand to appeal to the jurors--four officers and four enlisted personnel--to consider his 29 years of service and allow him to retire “with some form of honor.”

Referring to his wife, who sat in the front row throughout the trial, McKinney said: “Whatever the outcome of this thing is, Wilhemina and I have said we’re going to do what we do best, which is to serve young people and soldiers, whether in uniform or civilian life. I’d like to do that with some form of honor.”

As he left the small courtroom, he told reporters: “We’re going to move on with our lives in spite of this long, extensive investigation. We did OK.”

Over the five-week court-martial, his six accusers gave separate but similar accounts of being propositioned or groped by McKinney and, in one case, being led into adultery. He was removed from his position as top enlisted man last year but allowed to keep his rank of sergeant major.

The one charge on which he was convicted was based on a phone call he made to Staff Sgt. Christine M. Fetrow, who tape-recorded the conversation. In it, McKinney was heard trying to persuade Fetrow to tell Army investigators that they had “just talked about career development” in his Pentagon office, where Fetrow testified the sergeant major forcefully grabbed her, locked the door and propositioned her.

If convicted on the original 19 charges, McKinney could have received a maximum punishment of 55 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge. Obstruction of justice carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a dishonorable discharge.

Officials calculated that his reduction in rank to master sergeant will provide him with a pension of $2,385 a month instead of the $3,260 he would otherwise have received.

His civilian defense lawyer, Charles W. Gittins, based his case on McKinney’s outstanding service record, including a tour of duty in Vietnam, and on his reputation for honesty and integrity, to which a number of officers and enlisted personnel testified.

Gittins insisted that McKinney’s accusers had lied out of revenge against a stern taskmaster like the sergeant major, or because they had personal problems, such as difficulty in relating to men.

Outside court on Monday, Gittins declared: “We demonstrated, I believe conclusively . . . that the women were liars, cheats and frauds. We were left with an obstruction-of-justice charge that the government essentially manufactured.”

In interviews Monday and over the weekend, some of McKinney’s accusers protested that the privacy and self-respect they sacrificed by coming forward was not worth it.

“What I sacrificed wasn’t worth [just] one guilty verdict,” said Sgt. Christine Roy, who testified that McKinney had forced her to have sex at his home when she was nearly eight months pregnant.

Roy said on NBC’s “Today” show that McKinney is “out of my thoughts. I need to heal myself and move on from this day forward.”

Another female witness, Navy Petty Officer Johnna M. Vinson, said that “one by one my friends have pulled away or made it publicly clear they are against me.”

Meanwhile, McKinney’s attorney, Gittins, disclosed that McKinney has filed a $1.5-million libel suit against one of his accusers, retired Army Sgt. Maj. Brenda L. Hoster. Hoster’s accusations that McKinney grabbed her in a Honolulu hotel room in 1996 triggered the investigation and cost McKinney his job.