CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / SAN DIEGO
A married Marine gunnery sergeant was sentenced to 90 days in the brig after pleading guilty to committing adultery with the widow of a Marine killed three weeks earlier in Afghanistan.
Gunnery Sgt. Stephen Kuehler, 30, a recruiter in St. Louis, admitted having sex with the widow of Pvt. Michael Patton, 19. Kuehler had recruited Patton into the Marine Corps. Patton, a member of the Twentynine Palms, Calif.-based 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, was killed in June by a roadside bomb. Kuehler attended his funeral in Fenton, Mo., and befriended his widow.
A Marine prosecutor, Capt. Tyler Hart, this week told a jury of two officers and six enlisted personnel at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego that Kuehler had “betrayed the trust of a fellow Marine.”
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, adultery is considered “conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline.” Kuehler was reduced in rank to staff sergeant and will not be allowed to reenlist.
-- Tony Perry
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