Friday, March 30, 2001

By Fred Knapp, Stars and Stripes

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — A military judge sentenced a 20-year-old Yokota airman to nine months in jail and a bad-conduct discharge Wednesday for involvement with hallucinogenic mushrooms and ecstasy.

Lt. Col. David Brash also reduced Airman Lewis Dodson Jr. to E-1 and ordered him to forfeit all pay and allowances.

The sentence followed an emotional trial where Dodson and his father asked for leniency based on the airman’s mental health problems. Prosecutors demanded that the airman be held responsible for his actions.

"It kills me to look at you and know how disappointed you are in me," Dodson told his parents as he choked back tears when addressing the court Wednesday morning. "To all the people I know and trust, I am very sorry I have disappointed you and hope you will forgive me."

"All the timely tears and rented remorse can never erase the psilocyn mushrooms and ecstasy pills," countered Capt. David Young, the assistant prosecutor.

Dodson pleaded guilty to bringing hallucinogenic mushrooms onto Yokota and using them between January and April 2000. He also pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess, possessing and distributing ecstasy last July.

Although he pleaded not guilty of using the party drug, Brash found him guilty, saying that while prosecutors had not proven he used the drug, he had "vicarious liability" because his conduct aided and encouraged others to commit a wrongful act.

Dodson testified that he had called someone in the Navy who had access to the drug, and arranged to meet at a club in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district to get the pills on an outing with fellow airmen Justyn Rosati, Foster Rose and Airman Basic Matthew Horan.

Horan pleaded guilty in January to using mushrooms and was sentenced to six months in jail. Rosati and Rose are facing courts-martial on drug charges, but received immunity for their testimony in Dodson’s trial.

Dodson could have gotten up to 45 years, but prosecutors asked for a one-year sentence and a bad-conduct discharge. The defense asked for three or four months and no punitive discharge.

Maj. Robert Wilson, a clinical psychologist who examined the younger Dodson last year, said the airman had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , and adjustment disorder, apparently related to the stress of moving from high school to the Air Force and moving overseas.

However, under questioning by Maj. John Hartsell, the lead prosecutor, Wilson acknowledged that as Hartsell put it, "Not everyone who has that (ADHD) or has problems adjusting to stressors commits serious crimes."

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