CAPE MAY — Former recruit company commander, Petty Officer 1st Class Wilson Medina, a gunner’s mate at Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, pled guilty March 11 during a general court-martial to charges of assault consummated by a battery and sodomy.
The specific charges included one count of abusive sexual contact and one count of forcible sodomy. The alleged incident occurred off base and the accused was in an off-duty status at the time.
According to Coast Guard spokesperson CWO Veronica Bandrowsky, Medina will receive 13 months of confinement in a U.S. Navy brig. Medina will be demoted from an E6 pay grade to E1, the lowest pay grade, with no pay or benefits. He will also receive a bad conduct discharge.
Bandrowski said there is an automatic appeal to the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals based on the sentence imposed. The punitive discharge is not effective until all appeals are completed. Normally, a member with a sentence such as this is placed ina non-pay appellate leave status upon release from confinement pending completion of appeals.
Medina was part of the training division staff, and served as a recruit company commander. He was reassigned to new duties with no contact with recruits.
The victim was also a Coast Guard member and his identity has no been officially released.
The allegations against Medina were first reported on Dec. 10, 2007.
In May 2007, then Herald Assistant Managing Editor Susan Avedissian attended a preliminary hearing one year ago. At that time, a Coast Guard seaman, “J.M.” testified that an episode of watching boxing on television and drinking beer and vodka with his former company commander Medina turned into something else entirely when Medina reached into his pants and grabbed his crotch.
A separate incident later that night in which J.M. testified after he fell asleep, he was awoken to find Medina performing a sex act on him which was the basis for a separate charge under Article 125 of forcible sodomy.
J.M. graduated from Coast Guard Training Center Cape May in October 2007 and was as-signed to the Coast Guard Small Boat Station as his first assignment. He’d been on base only a few days when he testified the incident occurred, on Nov. 10-11, 2007.
According to J.M., Medina had invited him to his house to watch a pay-per-view boxing match on television. After an evening with Medina and his wife Sonya and their three children, J.M. told Investigating Officer Lt. Cmdr. Russell E. Bowman that the rest of the family went to bed.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice controls the proceedings. Medina was charged with a violation of Article 125 of the Code, forcible sodomy, and of Article 120 abusive sexual contact. The maximum term of imprisonment on the sodomy charge is life without parole; seven years for the abusive sexual contact charge.
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