Drill Sergeant Pleads Guilty To Fondling
A U.S. Army drill instructor has been sentenced to 18 months’ confinement, loss of rank, pay and benefits and a dishonorable discharge after he was court-martialed for sexually fondling female soldiers in his platoon.
Staff Sgt. Anthony Fore, a basic-training instructor at the south-central Missouri post, pleaded guilty Thursday morning to touching several trainees’ breasts and was found guilty of fondling another recruit during a “medical exam.”
Fore also pleaded guilty to various incidents of assault and battery and failing to obey a general regulation. He was found not guilty of a charge of maltreatment.
Fore, 36, of Detroit, was in the first year of a two-year stint as a drill sergeant when the offenses occurred, post officials said. Workers who knew Fore from previous assignments as an Army medic and nurse described him as a stellar worker.
“The otherwise model soldier has made some mistakes,” said Fore’s defense attorney, Capt. James A. Dearie. “He admitted them here today.”
The character references apparently made little difference to the court, which sentenced him as severely as a plea bargain would allow. Fore’s apologies apparently mattered little, either.
“I just apologize for being a disgrace upon the military, not only myself,” Fore told military judge Gregory O. Varo before sentencing.
Fore was particularly concerned, he said, about what happened with one 18-year-old recruit. He was convicted of sexually fondling the woman when he approached her bed to check her for fever. During the exam, he ran his hands across her breasts, reached beneath her shorts and fondled her, the woman testified Thursday.
“I don’t know how to apologize to her,” Fore told the judge. “I hope she’ll forgive me for losing my professionalism. I’m very remorseful about that.”
Fore was charged with only four criminal counts in the court-martial, but several counts included numerous “specifications” about individual incidents. Fore was not found guilty of each specification but was guilty of enough specifications under the three counts to be found guilty of each count. The fourth count, of “maltreatment,” is more difficult to prove, officials said.
Fore is the second drill sergeant at Fort Leonard Wood this fall to be convicted of sexually related crimes. Sgt. Loren Taylor of Chicago was convicted last month of “failure to obey a general regulation” related to consensual sex with five trainees. Taylor was demoted to private and sentenced to five months of confinement.