CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — An Okinawa sailor was found guilty of soliciting to have her husband’s girlfriend killed, but was acquitted of a charge that she also conspired to have a murder committed.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Sheila Daniels, a White Beach Naval Facility master at arms, was sentenced to reduction to E-1 and given a bad conduct discharge for asking Marine Sgt. Michael Avinger, a self-admitted gang member, to arrange the death of then-Staff Sgt. Christina Miller who was pregnant by Sheila Daniels’ husband, Darian Daniels.
Avinger, who said he is the godson of Crips gang founder Stanley “Tookie” Williams, testified Thursday that Sheila Williams knew he was a high-ranking Crips “lord.” He testified that during the summer of 2005, “she said something along the lines of I want to have her taken care of, knocked off.”
In an unrelated Naha District Court case, Avinger and Darian Daniels recently were sentenced to eight years in jail for robbing an American and cutting his throat in October 2006.
Earlier in Sheila Daniels’ trial, two Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agents testified that she confessed to the crime and made a written statement of that confession during an NCIS interview in June 2007.
Special Agent D.J. Maier testified that though NCIS agents typed the written statement, “the words that were in the statement were her words” and that she then signed the statement.
On the stand Thursday, Sheila Daniels said she had not known that Avinger was a gang member. She also testified that she was coerced into signing the written confession and that it wasn’t what she said during the interview.
During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutor Maj. Robert G. Palmer said the confession was “signed, initialed and sworn to, and now the accused claims she didn’t do it.”
“You can’t convict anybody on the evidence you have,” civilian defense attorney Shannon Frison argued. “All you have is Avinger’s story with no corroboration … that’s not enough to convict Petty Officer Daniels of solicitation and conspiracy.”
The jury deliberated almost three hours Friday afternoon before asking to hear again Maier’s Wednesday testimony about his interview of Daniels. On Saturday, the jury listened to about seven minutes of Maier’s testimony and re-examined other testimony.
The jury then deliberated for another hour and a half before coming back with the verdict: guilty of solicitation but not guilty of conspiracy.
Before sentencing, Chief Petty Officer Lakeesha Lyon, Sheila Daniels’ sister and a career counselor at Naval Air Station Atsugi, Japan, described her sister as “thoughtful, very selfless.”
In tears, Lyon asked the jury for leniency, so her sister “can get back to her children and teach them and show them not to make the mistakes she made.”
Asking for the maximum confinement of five years, Palmer said the accused was a police officer and a message must be sent about the seriousness of the crime.
Frison asked the jury not to imprison her client, that the federal conviction of solicitation to commit murder is a punishment that will haunt Sheila Daniels for the rest of her life.
It took the jury five hours to reach the sentence, which awarded no jail time.
