One of three Kaneohe Bay Marines accused in a highly publicized case of hazing a fellow Marine who then killed himself in Afghanistan reached a plea deal Monday and was sentenced to 30 days’ confinement.
Lance Cpl. Jacob D. Jacoby, 21, was also sentenced to a demotion at a special court-martial at the base in Kaneohe, officials said.
Jacoby pleaded guilty to three specifications, or charges, of assault against fellow Marine Lance Cpl. Harry Lew, admitting he kicked Lew in the back and head while Lew was wearing his Kevlar helmet and was in a foxhole, and that he punched Lew in the helmet.
The government agreed to drop the remaining two charges of wrongfully abusing, humiliating and demeaning Lew and threatening him, saying, "It’s inevitable, Lew, you’re going to get your ass beat."
Jacoby, who had faced a maximum 6 1⁄2 years if convicted of all the charges at a general court-martial, received the 30-day sentence from the judge, Navy Capt. Carrie Stephens.
Before the hearing began, Lew’s aunt U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., said the Marine Corps system "broke down" in the hazing meted out by fellow Marines.
Jacoby and two other Hawaii Marines faced multiple charges ranging from abuse and humiliation to assault and dereliction of duty preceding the April 3 death of Lew, 21, a Chinese-American who, along with the others, was part of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, based at Kaneohe Bay.
Chu, the first Chinese-American woman elected to Congress, was at the base for the hearing.
"We want to make sure that the military justice system actually works and that Harry’s death will not be in vain," Chu said.
The circumstances leading to her nephew’s death "are shocking in and of themselves because peers should not be taking justice in their own hands," she said, adding, "There should be a system of actions when something is going wrong. That’s, I think, where the system broke down."
Chu said she hopes changes are made "because there are other instances across this nation of this type — and we want to make sure that our soldiers are taken care of in the best way possible. Our soldiers are sacrificing their lives to make sure that justice is upheld in America, and we owe it to them to make sure that they are safe."
She is seeking congressional hearings on hazing in the military, in part following a "very shocking hazing incident" involving Army Pvt. Danny Chen, a Chinese-American soldier whose family said he was hazed in Afghanistan. He killed himself on Oct. 3.
Chu said she and other members of Congress want to see "what our different branches of our military are doing about hazing."
Lew’s father, Allen Lew, from Santa Clara, Calif., along with the dead Marine’s mother and sister, also were in Hawaii for the hearing.
"We are very sad about what we have here," Allen Lew said before the hearing. "We just couldn’t believe their own peers could do something like that to their own people. This has been a bad tragedy for us that never can … repair our broken heart."
At 3:43 a.m. April 3, while crouched in a foxhole he had just been ordered to dig because he had fallen asleep for the fourth time on sentry duty in less than two weeks, Lew leaned over his automatic weapon, placed the muzzle in his mouth and killed himself, the Marines say.
Sgt. Benjamin E. Johns, 26, and Lance Cpl. Carlos Orozco III, 22, who were also at Patrol Base Gowragi in southern Afghanistan with Lew, also face charges leading up to his death.
Johns is charged with humiliating and demeaning Lew and dereliction for failing to supervise a Marine under his care.
Orozco faces charges including humiliating Lew; dereliction; maltreatment of Lew for allegedly ordering him to do push-ups, ordering him to do leg lifts with a sandbag and pouring sand on his face; and assault for reportedly placing his boot on Lew’s back.
The other two Marines have not been tried at court-martial. Both sat in on Jacoby’s pretrial agreement as spectators.
Jacoby testified that he, Lew and another Marine were on guard duty the night of April 2 when Lew didn’t respond to a radio check. Jacoby said he suspected that Lew had fallen asleep again.
Johns, the sergeant, who was in charge of the patrol base at the time, said over the radio that he was disappointed that "we weren’t doing anything corrective to help Lew" with his sleeping problem, Jacoby said.
Jacoby said he and at least two other Marines checked on Lew.
AT one point a sleeping Lew was pulled by his helmet from his fighting position, berated in a voice loud enough to wake other Marines and ordered to carry a filled sandbag and dig a new chest-deep position, according to the investigation of his death.
Lew was ordered to do push-ups and crunches while a lance corporal would "stomp down" on Lew’s back and legs, the report states.
Jacoby said he was frustrated and angry with Lew and that the assault, including a punch to Lew’s helmet, occurred after Lew became "belligerent."
"I would not exactly say I punched him as hard as I could," Jacoby said. "I was just trying to get a point across."
Stephens, the judge, asked Jacoby whether he had any legal justification for striking Lew.
"No, ma’am," Jacoby said.
The investigation said the Marines didn’t cause Lew’s death, but were the "catalyst" for it.
However, Stephens said there was no direct link between the assault and the suicide.
"I don’t have that evidence," she said.
ALLEN Lew, wearing a khaki suit, testified that his son, who was born in the U.S., played the piano and loved to sketch, wanted to join the Marines because they were "the best."
After his son’s death, he said the Marine Corps "must be changed."
He added, "Beating is not going to take care of problems."
Testimony at an Article 32 hearing in September similar to a civilian preliminary hearing revealed that Marines who knew Lew were at a loss as to explain why he killed himself about two months before the unit returned to Hawaii.
Investigating officer Lt. Col. Douglas Gardner, then the judge in the case, repeatedly asked witnesses whether Lew’s Asian-American background was the subject of comments.
Marines testified that Lew and others made jokes about race.
In less than two weeks at Patrol Base Gowragi, a field where about 27 Marines lived in holes dug in the ground, Lew had fallen asleep four times on guard duty, according to the investigation and officials.
On one occasion Lew was discovered asleep at the entry control point for the base by his company commander as well as the battalion and regimental executive officers.
