RAF LAKENHEATH, England — A London-based Air Force postal worker was sentenced to 200 days’ confinement and given a bad-conduct discharge Wednesday for charges ranging from cocaine use to being absent without leave in 2006.
Staff Sgt. Dedrick L. Graham, 34, from Detachment 5 of the 2nd Air Postal Squadron, attached to RAF Alconbury, England, was also reduced to the rank of airman first class, E-3, in the one-day, judge-only court-martial.
Graham was charged with desertion, misuse of a government travel card, larceny and wrongful use of cocaine in a string of incidents that began with a positive test for drug use in January 2006.
Graham, a postal worker at Heathrow Airport, pleaded guilty to all charges except the desertion. Instead, he pleaded guilty to the lesser-included offense of being absent without leave from Oct. 5 to Oct. 26, 2006.
The charges stemmed from Graham’s admitted use of cocaine in a bar in London last January. Later in the year, while anticipating disciplinary action for the drug use, Graham used his government travel card to withdraw cash from automatic teller machines and take a cousin to meals in London, spending more than $825, according to court testimony.
The maximum sentence for the four charges were a dishonorable discharge, 6½-years’ confinement, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, reduction to E-1 and the possibility of a fine, a spokesman for RAF Mildenhall said.
