Pacific edition, Thursday, June 21, 2007
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — A soldier who admitted to having child pornography and then urged a judge not to boot him from the Army was sentenced Tuesday to a bad conduct discharge and a prison term.
Military judge Col. Gregory Gross sentenced Spc. Daniel V. Kleve, 22, to a 30-month prison term after Kleve pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of child pornography. However, he will only serve 10 months under a pre-trial agreement.
Kleve also was sentenced to reduction to E-1 — the military’s lowest pay grade — and to forfeiture of all pay and allowances.
“Please, I beg you, let me return to my unit,” Kleve told the judge before sentencing.
“Don’t give up on me. I want to retire honorably years from now.”
Kleve, who opted to be tried by judge alone instead of by jury, was an aircraft mechanic at Camp Eagle with Company D, 1st Battalion, 2nd Aviation Regiment, 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, part of the 2nd Infantry Division.
The pornography consisted of videos in which very young children were forcibly raped, sodomized and otherwise victimized sexually by adults, prosecutors told the court.
Kleve pleaded guilty to possessing the child pornography during the period of June 1 to August 10, 2006.
The sentence brings his more than four and a half years of military service to an end, a span that includes two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He had been set to deploy for another Iraq tour.
Kleve’s road to court-martial began when he downloaded to a laptop Internet videos that contained child pornography, prosecutors said.
One day, Kleve brought the laptop to the hangar where he works and allowed a soldier to use it.
The soldier unexpectedly discovered the child porn and “was so offended” he reported it to unit leaders, said prosecutor Capt. N. Graham Smith.
The Army, Smith said, “has no room for sex offenders.”
Defense lawyer Capt. Michael Korte argued that Kleve had not set out to search for or download child pornography but had nonetheless been negligent and “should have been more careful.”
“Your honor, don’t disown this member of the Army family. He loves the Army.”
Earlier, in an unsworn statement before the judge began weighing a sentence, Kleve recounted his experiences in the war zone and portrayed himself as a dedicated soldier committed to the Army.
“This isn’t just my job,” Kleve said. “It’s my life. I don’t want it to end.”
Kleve said downloading the child pornography was “really stupid”
“This is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made,” he told the judge.
Kleve was taken to the Camp Humphreys jail.
