NAHA, Okinawa — A Japanese prosecutor Wednesday asked for a five-year prison sentence for a 19-year old Marine who took part in a mugging last May.
Pvt. 1st Class Jake Boyer, assigned to Headquarters and Service Battalion, Camp Foster, pleaded guilty to the charge during a hearing in Naha District Court July 29. He admitted he was with another Marine when they mugged a 19-year-old Okinawa man in an alley in Okinawa City’s Uechi district, a popular bar and disco area near Kadena Air Base.
Boyer’s co-defendant, Lance Cpl. Michael Enriquez, 21, assigned to the same company, was sentenced Aug. 6 to three years in prison, to be suspended for four years conditional on good behavior. Boyer’s case was delayed because he is considered a minor under Japanese law and first went through the juvenile judicial system.
Calling it a “vicious crime,” prosecutor Tsuyoshi Satake said Boyer conspired with Enriquez to rob someone the night of May 2 to vent frustrations over an argument earlier that evening with a liquor store owner and a run-in with some fellow Marines.
He said the two Marines had been drinking and attacked Testsuya Tanaka from behind.
Tanaka was punched in the face and kicked in the head and back. The two Marines took from him about 500 yen, about $4, and a bandana worth about $8, Satake said.
Enriquez was arrested after he appeared at a Uechi bar the next evening and was recognized. He implicated Boyer, Satake said.
Boyer will be sentenced Sept. 24.
