A former Department of Defense civilian employee was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Sacramento to one year and eight months in prison for assaulting a U.S. military member in July 2020, a U.S. attorney and others said.
According to court documents, Gerald Leon Ray III, 27, of Lathrop, in the Central Valley, intentionally struck the victim in the face near Osan Air Base, a U.S. military installation in the Republic of Korea.
In a press statement, U.S. attorney Phillip A. Talbert said assault caused the victim to fall to the ground, strike his head on the pavement and suffer serious bodily injury. The evidence showed that, without immediate medical attention, which he received, the victim, who was not identified, could have died.
His injuries included a broken jaw, brain hemorrhage, and ongoing physical and mental health symptoms. At the time, Ray was employed in the Republic of Korea, aka South Korea, by the Defense Commissary Agency, a DOD agency, on the base.
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The charge was brought under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which establishes U.S. jurisdiction over certain offenses committed abroad by, among others, civilian employees of U.S. armed forces.
Ray previously pleaded guilty on March 21 to assault resulting in serious bodily injury, entering his plea in a courtroom in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Eastern District of California, which Talbert leads.
The U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the FBI investigated this case, with assistance from the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and the U.S. Marshals Service, in connection with the arrest, initial detention, and transport of Ray, Talbert noted in the prepared statement.
The prosecution was led by trial attorney Marie Zisa of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Heiko P. Coppola for the Eastern District of California.
