Former Air Force Officer Suspended
The Texas Board of Disciplinary Appeals has ordered an interlocutory suspension of a former Air Force officer convicted at a court martial 0f serious crimes.
Air Force Times had the story of the conviction
A military judge has convicted a Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., lieutenant colonel of indecent acts with a child younger than 16, possession of child pornography and violating no-contact orders.
James W. Richards, who chose to be tried by a judge rather than a jury during a three-day court-martial that ended Feb. 21, was sentenced to 17 years in a military prison, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and dismissal from the Air Force, a base news release said. Dismissal is the officer equivalent of a dishonorable discharge.
The Bay County, Fla., sheriff’s office arrested Richards, 40, in November 2011 for traveling to meet a minor for sex. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations had contacted the sheriff’s office after receiving a complaint that Richards had molested a 10-year-old boy about a decade earlier in Texas, according to the sheriff’s news release. OSI began surveillance of Richards and found he was picking up a 17-year-old boy in Bay County and taking him to his home for several hours at a time, it said.
OSI contacted the sheriff’s office for help with the case. The boy told authorities he met Richards in an online gaming chat room and that they had begun a sexual relationship nine months earlier, when he was 16.
Richards was found guilty on all the charges he faced, which included five specifications of an indecent act with a child and four specifications of violating a no-contact order.
Richards was a judge advocate general assigned to the Air Force Legal Operations Agency in the utilities litigation team stationed at Tyndall, 2nd Lt. Andrea Valencia said in an email.
The Legal Intelligencer had noted a civil suit filed against the attorney and the Big Brothers organization in a separate matter.
The national Big Brothers Big Sisters organization could not escape a Pennsylvania lawsuit from an alleged victim who claimed one of its affiliate’s mentors molested him.
The plaintiff, listed as J.P., claimed he was sexually assaulted by former Big Brother James W. Richards. In addition to Richards and Big Brothers’ national body, J.P. sued the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties in New Jersey. The Legal does not name alleged or confirmed victims of sexual abuse…
[Judge] Massiah-Jackson wrote in her opinion that Richards claimed the Philadelphia court system had no jurisdiction in the case because the sex acts did not occur in Pennsylvania.
However, Massiah-Jackson said the process of what a plaintiffs expert called “seducing the child” occurred during activities such as taking J.P. to Phillies games, the Philadelphia Auto Show, and trips to the city’s Chinatown.
“In this instance, the series of visits to Pennsylvania were undertaken to bring about the physical sexual acts,” Massiah-Jackson said. “The harm, the tortious injury, and the cause of action of battery, did take place in Pennsylvania because all of the activities were part of the defendant Richards’ tortious behavior,” Massiah-Jackson said.
Massiah-Jackson also said the national Big Brothers organization was responsible for its affiliates and has demonstrated it through its mechanisms to screen potential abusers and a previous acknowledgement that the organization attracts child predators.
(Mike Frisch)