Urine test monitor found guilty of using drugs

[unhappycamper]

Urine test monitor found guilty of using drugs
By Kent Harris, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, March 31, 2008

VICENZA, Italy — A staff sergeant charged with running his unit’s drug testing program was found guilty in a general court-martial Friday of using marijuana himself and engaging in a conspiracy to hide another soldier’s drug use.

Staff Sgt. Shawn Walker pleaded guilty to six charges in all and was sentenced to eight months in prison, loss of $898 in pay a month during that span, reduction in rank to E-1 and a bad-conduct discharge. He originally faced a maximum sentence of more than 26 years in prison, but three charges were consolidated for sentencing purposes, leaving him with a possible sentence of 17 years, 6 months.

The military judge, Col. R. Peter Masterton, chose a sentence somewhere in between what the prosecutor, Capt. Kimberly Barnard, and defense counsel, Capt. James Hill, had argued for.

Barnard proposed a minimum sentence of 30 months, pointing out that Walker admitted to smoking marijuana with a private about 30 times from July to February.

Walker was also a unit prevention leader for a platoon of the 14th Movement Control Battalion, responsible for collecting urine samples from soldiers in his unit. But he admitted to providing advance warning to that same private four or five times about upcoming surprise screenings. He also asked a sergeant who was supposed to be observing the test to urinate into a cup for the private in one instance when it was thought the private would test positive. That sergeant did so and the private’s drug use remained undiscovered at the time.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53725