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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Drill Sergeant Sentenced In Sex Scandal

Associated Press

A drill sergeant who had sex with three women recruits got five months in prison and a bad-conduct discharge Wednesday in the first sentencing of the burgeoning Army sex scandal.

Sgt. Loren B. Taylor, 29, pleaded guilty a day earlier of breaking the ban on sex between commanders and subordinates, having consensual sex with three women recruits and trying to have sex with another.

Two other instructors at Fort Leonard Wood face similar charges.

The charges were disclosed on Tuesday, five days after a sex scandal broke at the military’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where four drill instructors and a captain have been charged with raping or sexually harassing at least a dozen female recruits.

In another case, The San Antonio Express-News reported Wednesday that women Army trainees from Fort Sam Houston kissed their supervisors during wild drinking binges and that one trainee performed oral sex on her supervisor. Five sergeants were disciplined.

Taylor, who had faced up to 14 years behind bars, asked the judge to spare him prison so he could support his 7-year-old son, who lives with his former wife.

But prosecutors, bolstered by the testimony of two women who said they felt pressured into having sex with Taylor, asked the judge to send him to prison as a deterrent.

As of Wednesday, more than 3,100 telephone calls had been logged at a special hot line.