CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — A soldier found guilty on adultery and drug charges Monday was sentenced to jail, loss of rank, and a reprimand.
But a jury found the soldier not guilty of sexually assaulting a female soldier.
Spc. Dennis R. Cummings had been charged with aggravated sexual assault, adultery, and wrongful possession of a controlled substance.
A married father, Cummings is assigned to the Army’s 3rd Battlefield Coordination Detachment at Osan Air Base.
A seven-member jury of Army officers and senior noncommissioned officers sentenced Cummings to 30 days in jail and reduction to pay grade E-2.
In a one-day court-martial before military judge Col. Donna M. Wright, prosecutor Capt. Richard E. Gorini accused Cummings of having intercourse with the soldier in her room at Osan Air Base sometime during the night of Oct. 9, after she’d had numerous shots of tequila and was too drunk to consent.
“He took advantage of” the woman’s “drunken state,” Gorini told jurors.
But Cummings testified he had intercourse with the woman at her invitation and that he quit the sex the moment she abruptly signaled she wanted it to stop. He said it was preceded by flirtation and foreplay in which she had kissed and touched him.
The defense produced photos it contended showed the soldiers in Cummings’ room, the woman sitting cozily in his lap.
The woman denied she’d flirted, touched him, or invited him to have sex, and said the photos were taken on an earlier occasion.
She insisted she had no memory of the sex itself, even though she was able to testify in clear detail about other aspects of their time in her room.
“If it’s something that can assist her story she can put them out to you just like that,” defense lawyer Capt. David Stem told jurors. But facts that don’t support the prosecution’s case the woman claimed not to remember, Stem said.
“This was your textbook scenario of individuals engaging in sex” consensually, Stem argued.
On the witness stand Monday, Cummings readily acknowledged having sex with the woman even though they both were married.
The drug conviction came after his testimony that he had taken a quantity of prescription Tylenol 3 pills from a bottle left in his room by a fellow soldier and put them in an earplugs container for safekeeping. He denied illicit intent.
Cummings was to be driven Monday night to the Camp Humphreys jail to begin serving his sentence.
