Pentagon grapples with sex crimes by military recruiters

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-grapples-with-sex-crimes-by-military-recruiters/2013/05/12/d082ec1c-b97e-11e2-bd07-b6e0e6152528_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

Pentagon grapples with sex crimes by military recruiters
By Craig Whitlock, Published: May 12 E-mail the writer

Military recruiters across the country have been caught in a string of sex-crime scandals over the past year, exposing another long-standing problem for the Defense Department as it grapples with a crisis of sexual assault in the ranks.

In Alaska, law enforcement officials are fuming after a military jury this month convicted a ­Marine Corps recruiter of ­first-degree sexual assault in the rape of a 23-year-old female civilian but did not sentence him to prison.

In Texas, an Air Force recruiter will face a military court next month on charges of rape, forcible sodomy and other crimes involving 18 young women he tried to enlist over a three-year period. Air Force officials have described the case as perhaps the worst involving one of its recruiters.

In Maryland, Army officials are puzzling over a murder-suicide last month, when a staff sergeant, Adam Arndt, killed himself after he fatally shot Michelle Miller, a 17-year-old Germantown girl whom he had been recruiting for the Army Reserve. Officials suspect the two were romantically involved, something expressly forbidden by military rules.