by BriggsM | AuxBeacon News Contributor

[Editor’s Note: We thought we had covered this story, but it wasn’t on our website. Thank you for correcting the omission. We will try to get it in place in 2014 and again in 2018 and 2019. Thank you for your contribution.]

AuxBeacon Readers, Civil Air Patrol Members:

Every time Civil Air Patrol commander Mark Smith opens his filthy pig mouth, I intend to expose another confessed rapist or child molester in the United States Air Force.

A U.S. Air Force fighter pilot has been convicted of rape, nine years after he committed the crime against a young airman.

Lt. Col. Michael J. Briggs, an F-16 pilot who was the 52nd Fighter Wing chief of safety at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, was convicted on August 7th 2014 after a week long court-martial before a military judge.

The judge sentenced Briggs to just five months in jail, dismissal from the Air Force and a reprimand.

The rape occurred in 2005 while Briggs was on a temporary duty assignment at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho.

“This was a violent rape that left (the victim) bleeding and bruised,” said an Air Force official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the case.

“I am sorry. I have been sorry. I will always be sorry for raping you.”

In a 20-minute long phone call placed in 2013, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Briggs confessed to raping SSgt. “DK” in 2005. After receiving a call from the victim, Briggs detailed how he went to her room after a long night of drinking, pushed himself on her and continued to have sex with her despite pleas for him to stop.

A recording of that call was played in the courtroom. Based on the UCMJ and legal precedent, it has been understood that there is no statute of limitations for rape in the military.

Update

In 2018, however, the top military appeals court came to a different understanding. When presented with a separate rape charge brought years after an alleged incident, it found that a five-year statute of limitations existed prior to 2006. The decision eventually led to Briggs’ rape conviction being vacated.

As a result of this change during the Trump administration, at least 10 new cases have been prevented from being heard. All of this has happened while the US military is plagued by a 38% increase in sexual assault, as reported in the Spring of 2019.

This “is a cancer within an organization, and we got to crush it” said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley.

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• Appeals court ruling leads to dismissal in years-old rape case involving Spangdahlem pilot