Army
Retired Army major general demoted after sex crime conviction, report says
Associated Press
June 8, 2021
A wooden gavel and block is seen inside the Senate Hart Building in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, March 3, 2015. (Carlos Bongioanni/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — A retired Army major general has been reduced in rank to second lieutenant after his guilty plea in Virginia in 2020 to charges of rape and incest.
Pentagon spokeswoman Lisa Lawrence said in an email that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin demoted Maj. Gen. James J. Grazioplene to second lieutenant after determining that second lieutenant was the highest grade in which he served on active duty satisfactorily, The Army Times reported Monday.
Lawrence said the action is not subject to appeal.
The Washington Post reported in 2018 that Grazioplene initially called the charges against him "false and incorrect."
Grazioplene faced a court-martial, but the charges were dismissed in March. A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in another case effectively limited the statute of limitations in Grazioplene's case to five years. Army investigators were focusing on accusations from the 1980s.