BAUMHOLDER, Germany — The third of at least eight 1st Armored Division soldiers allegedly connected to Baumholder’s 2005 crime spree has pleaded guilty.
Col. Denise Lind, the military judge, sentenced Pfc. Brett Brown on Monday to seven years’ confinement, reduction in rank to E-1 and a bad-conduct discharge, according to a 1st AD news release.
Brown pleaded guilty to 11 charges including:
Using and distributing illegal drugs.Conspiring to steal government property.Being an accessory after the fact to robbery.Being away without leave from his unit, Headquarters, Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment.Brown was part of a group of soldiers linked to incidents including an Aug. 11, 2005, fire that caused about $1 million in damage to a wing of Baumholder’s city government center. While Brown was not charged in that fire, testimony during recent Article 32s and courts-martial depicted him as a confidant of Pfc. Zachary Watson, of Company A, 40th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, who was sentenced Feb. 8 to 15 years for, among other things, causing the fire, stealing government laptop computers from H.D. Smith Barracks in Baumholder, drug-dealing and robbing an Idar-Oberstein taxi driver.
Watson testified that Brown drove the car used to rendezvous with soldiers and a German civilian who robbed the taxi driver. Watson also testified that Brown was involved in stealing laptops from two 2nd Brigade motor pools.
The court-martial for Pfc. Samuel Bell III, also of Company A, 40th Engineers, is scheduled to reconvene later this week, with the soldier to be tried on charges related to the fire, to drug-dealing and to the taxi robbery.
