CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A former brig guard was sentenced to six months’ confinement, busted to E-1 and given a bad-conduct discharge Monday by a special court-martial panel.
Cpl. George L. Edwards showed no emotion as the three-man jury handed down their decision to kick him out of the Marine Corps for seven violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Edwards, 22, had just three months to go on his enlistment when things began to go wrong for him, according to closing arguments by the prosecution and defense counsels.
The first two charges against him stemmed from an April 10 barracks incident on Camp Hansen. During a party in the barracks, according to testimony, he pulled down his pants in front of two junior enlisted Marines — one of them a woman — and exposed his buttocks.
Charges from that incident led Edwards to be transferred to Camp Foster and be designated a liberty risk, which meant he was not allowed to buy or consume alcohol.
But on April 21, when he appeared drunk near his barracks at 3:30 a.m., he disobeyed and showed disrespect to a warrant officer and a gunnery sergeant, cursing at them and using racial slurs, even as he was hauled off to the Provost Marshal’s Office in handcuffs, said Capt. Robert Eckert, the prosecutor.
Once there, Edwards repeatedly challenged the military police officers and had to be physically removed from the squad car, resulting in a charge of disorderly conduct. He was also charged, when he was released, of giving a false official statement to an NCO, according to Eckert.
Edwards’ defense for the April 21 charges was that he was coming back from a rap concert and was singing rap lyrics that were mistaken for racial slurs. He pleaded guilty only to drinking while on liberty risk status.
Edwards will be credited for the 55 days he spent in the brig awaiting trial.
