I'll post some more links to articles about this case of the soldier who gave military strength drugs to a 16 year old girl! she died. should he get leniency? or should he do the entire 82 years in jail for kiling a young beautiful flower?
"Fort Lewis soldiers testify where they got drugs before girl died. " McClatchy - Tribune Business News
May 21--Spc. Brandon Savoy remembers being nervous about snorting the pain killer Percocet.
"Is it safe?" he asked Pvt. Timothy E. Bennitt, a fellow member of his Fort Lewis engineer company.
"You'll be fine," Bennitt told him, according to Savoy's testimony in a Fort Lewis courtroom Wednesday. "Just don't do the whole thing. Just do half."
Hours later on this busy night of drug use, prosecutors say, a Lakewood teenager was dead of a prescription drug overdose in Bennitt's barracks room.
Government attorneys laid the groundwork for drug-related charges against Bennitt Wednesday as the 19-year-old Indiana resident's Article 32 hearing entered its second day.
Bennitt is also charged with involuntary manslaughter, stemming from the on-post death of 16-year-old Leah King on Feb. 15.
The defense didn't open its case Wednesday and now must wait until June 2 before it has an opportunity. The next stage of the hearing was delayed because a defense attorney had legal obligations elsewhere today.
Three soldiers testified on the second day of the hearing, the military equivalent of a grand-jury proceeding. They implicated Bennitt in the sale of Ecstasy, marijuana, oxymorphone, alprazolam and oxycodone.
Savoy also described the drug-soaked night of Feb. 14, when he, Bennitt and two other soldiers left Fort Lewis for dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Tillicum. King was found dead of an overdose in the barracks early the next morning; another friend also overdosed but has since recovered.
Savoy was feeling nauseated from smoking marijuana earlier that night - drugs he scored from Bennitt two days earlier, he told the court. After dinner, the four soldiers drove to a nearby trailer park where King and Bennitt's alleged drug dealer lived.
Bennitt had purchased a dessert item for King and wanted to give it to her, according to the testimony.
Prosecutors say Bennitt also purchased prescription pills during that trip.
They returned to the barracks. Savoy said Bennitt taught him how to dissolve the time-release coating on the pills and assured him they were safe. They crushed the pills and snorted them through a dollar bill.
"Where did those pills come from?" government attorney Capt. Grady Leupold asked. "Private Bennitt," Savoy answered.
A military criminal investigator testified Tuesday that Bennitt left the barracks later that night, picked up King and her friend, and purchased prescription pills. The teenage girls were found overdosed sometime after 3 a.m. in Bennitt's room, the investigator said.
Defense attorneys hammered Savoy on several inconsistencies in the sworn statement he gave to investigators and in his testimony Wednesday. For example, he told investigators he was sick at KFC because he took pills earlier that night.
But he said on the stand he hadn't taken pills that night and was sick from marijuana he had smoked.
Savoy said he forgot some details and hadn't had a chance to review his statement until Wednesday. Savoy testified he suffers from memory loss because of prior drug use and brain damage from a car accident years ago.
"There are some parts (of that night) that I can't remember," he told defense attorney Capt. Don-Michael Barbour, "and some parts that I can."
"There's a lot of inconsistent testimony," Barbour told him later, "and instead of saying [194 145 ]I don't remember,' you give an inaccurate answer."
The defense also went after Savoy's credibility: He was reduced in rank after he rolled a military vehicle he wasn't authorized to drive, tested positive for marijuana, had his room searched with drug-sniffing dogs and was found in possession of a bong during another room search. (Dates for these incidents weren't given.)
When the Article 32 hearing is complete, the investigating officer, Maj. Rebecca Connally, will weigh the evidence and testimony and compile a report with recommendations on charges, a process that could take anywhere from several days to two weeks.
Bennitt, a heavy equipment operator with 617th Engineer Company, 864th Engineer Battalion, is being held in pre-trial confinement in the brig of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor. He faces up to 82 years in prison, reduction in rank, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and a dishonorable discharge from the Army if convicted on all counts.
Scott Fontaine: 253-320-4758
scott.fontaine@thene wstribune.com blogs.thenewstribune .com/military
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