CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A Marine sergeant lost a stripe and two months of freedom Thursday after being convicted of adultery.
The sentence of demotion and two months confinement capped a three-day proceeding that saw Sgt. Samey Mao, 25, acquitted of more serious rape and burglary charges. He faced a maximum punishment of a year in prison and a dishonorable discharge on the adultery conviction.
Mao, now with the Materiel Readiness Battalion, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, was accused of breaking into a corporal’s barracks room in December and raping her as she lay passed out after a night of heavy drinking. Both then were assigned to the ammunition company on Camp Schwab.
The 21-year-old corporal said she did not consent to sex with Mao, but a medical expert testified she may have been so drunk she had a blackout in which she could have not remembered consenting.
Mao, whose wife sat behind him throughout the trial, was characterized as an outstanding Marine by supervisors.
Chief trial counsel Maj. Robert Palmer had asked that Mao be given the maximum sentence.
“I can’t imagine a more aggravating case than this,” he argued, adding that adultery in the Marines is “wildly prejudicial” to good order and discipline.
Mao was the corporal’s “boss, her superior, and she trusted him … and this is the result,” Palmer said. “He should have known better. He should have been home with his family.”
Mao’s defense attorney, Capt. Josh Rosen, had asked the jury to return a sentence of no punishment, calling Mao’s felony conviction punishment enough, something that “will hang around his neck for the rest of his life.”
