NAHA, Okinawa — A U.S. civilian employee on Camp Foster was given a suspended sentence Wednesday in Naha District Court for abusing a stimulant.
Christopher S. Dimitriadis, 35, a Marine Corps Community Services employee, was sentenced to 18 months in prison with forced labor.
Judge Shinichi Rai suspended the punishment for three years on the conditions that Dimitriadis stays away from illegal substances and commits no crimes during that period.
Dimitriadis pleaded guilty Feb. 27 to a charge of injecting himself with the drug phenylmethyl aminopropane inside a bathroom of a supermarket in Ginowan’s Aragusuku district. He has been in Naha detention center since his Jan. 15 arrest.
In the previous hearing, Dimitriadis told the court that he bought the substance, an amphetamine-like concoction that is usually made by underground chemists, from a drug dealer he met while gambling at pachinko parlors.
He testified that he became addicted to playing pachinko and slot machines and to using the drug, due to depression he suffered from being separated from his wife.
He spent all of his savings of $40,000 on the drug in the five months before he was arrested, shooting up 10 times a day, he told the court.
“Finding pleasure in illegal substance cannot be justified for any reason, even if the defendant suffered from family relationships,” Rai said, explaining the sentencing Wednesday.
He said he suspended the sentence in part because Dimitriadis showed remorse during the previous hearing, and because his Japanese wife testified that she would give her husband whatever support he needed to rehabilitate himself.
