Subscribe

CAMP CASEY, South Korea — A 2nd Infantry Division sergeant sexually assaulted a female soldier about an hour after she passed out in her own vomit and urine, a Camp Casey military jury found Thursday.

Sgt. Berttran Tiller of the 70th Brigade Support Battalion was sentenced to one year of confinement, reduction in rank to E-1, total forfeiture of pay and a bad-conduct discharge after being found guilty of aggravated sexual assault, housebreaking and adultery.

The woman, a junior enlisted soldier, told the court that on Nov. 2 she drank five Long Island iced teas and two shots of tequila in one hour at Marty’s Sports Bar and Grill in Dongducheon.

She and others then went dancing at the Himalaya Club, but another sergeant took her to her barracks around 8:30 p.m. when she began staggering.

The sergeant left her in the care of Pfc. Starteria Allen, who said she checked on the victim every 45 minutes or so to make sure she was still breathing.

Around 12:30 a.m., Allen saw that the victim had urinated on her bed. Tiller, who was nearby, stripped the sheets while Allen found a fresh set.

While Tiller held the victim upright, she threw up.

When prosecutor Capt. Jeremy Steward asked Allen to describe the victim’s speech, Allen made gurgling noises.

“I never heard her say to [Tiller] ‘Come back,’” Allen said. “It wasn’t possible for her.”

An hour after Tiller cleaned up her vomit, he crawled through her barracks room window and had sex with her three times in an hour, Steward said.

Tiller contended he came back more than an hour later. He also said she had let him in through the window, then walked to her dresser for condoms before propositioning him for sex.

The woman said she remembered nothing from the time she left Marty’s to when she woke up early in the morning and found Tiller in her bed and used condom wrappers lying on the floor.

“I told him, ‘Even if I told you to come back, I was drunk. You had no right,’” she said.

She said he agreed that he was wrong before crawling back out the window.

Tiller and the woman had a previous sexual relationship that ended about three weeks before the assault when the victim found out Tiller was married. She did, however, say she had sex with him once more after she found out he was married.

During their relationship, Tiller entered her room through the window to avoid signing in at the charge of quarters desk.

Tiller, who has three children from 7 to 13, told the court he made a mistake but wasn’t a bad guy, then apologized.

“Both my wife and [the victim] deserve to be treated better,” Tiller said.

Tiller faced a maximum 35-year prison sentence. Prosecutors had asked for five years of confinement and a dishonorable discharge.

Sign Up for Daily Headlines

Sign up to receive a daily email of today's top military news stories from Stars and Stripes and top news outlets from around the world.

Sign Up Now