OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — An airman faces up to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to sexual misconduct with a woman in a dorm at Osan Air Base.
Senior Airman Joshua L. Amundson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit indecent acts, indecent acts and adultery in a trial going forward before military judge Maj. Charles Wiedie. The airman also faces a possible dishonorable discharge and loss of pay and rank.
Amundson, of Osan’s 51st Munitions Squadron, pleaded not guilty to rape, sexual assault and housebreaking.
His court-martial is the second to arise from a Feb. 11, 2007, incident. In a January trial, Senior Airman Gabriel R. Contreras was sentenced to one year in prison, a dishonorable discharge, reduction in rank to E-1 and forfeiture of pay for encouraging Amundson to allegedly rape the sleeping woman. In that trial, Amundson testified he had sexual intercourse with the woman but that it was consensual.
Central to both cases is testimony that Contreras had consensual sex with the woman in her dorm room after a night of drinking. The woman fell asleep and Contreras encouraged Amundson to come with him to the woman’s room for a possible sexual threesome.
Amundson on Wednesday testified he was guilty of going along with Contreras’ suggestion of a three-way sexual encounter and of touching the woman’s genitals while Contreras looked on — a crime under U.S. military law.
He also told the judge he was guilty of adultery because he had sexual intercourse with the woman and is married.
“This is a case of an opportunistic airman preying upon a drunk, sleeping” female airman, Capt. Rob Stuart said in the prosecution’s opening statement Tuesday afternoon. The woman was “extremely intoxicated,” Stuart said.
Stuart said the woman woke up to find “a stranger having sex with her, and that stranger was the accused.”
In the defense’s opening statement, Capt. Nina Padalino countered that “the other side of this case boils down to one thing: what you believe happened. … This case boils down to two sides of a story.”
The woman’s credibility would be in question during the trial, Padalino said, because of “memory problems,” and “reasons to lie.”
The trial was to resume Thursday.
