Maj. Gen. William Cooley guilty of one of three sexual contact charges in first military trial of an Air Force general
An Air Force major general in Ohio has been convicted by a military judge of one of three specifications of abusive sexual contact in the first military trial of an Air Force general.
The charge faced by Maj. Gen. William Cooley during the weeklong court-martial at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio had three specifications, one alleging a forcible kiss and two alleging forcible touching.
Cooley was convicted of the first specification but acquitted of the second and third in a decision announced as soon as the military court opened Saturday morning, the Dayton Daily News reported.
Verdict pronounced in Cooley court-martial at Wright-Patt https://t.co/cIv9wyRV8s
— Dayton Daily News (@daytondailynews) April 23, 2022
A former commander of Air Force Research Laboratory, Cooley was charged with abusive sexual contact in an encounter with a woman who gave him a ride after a backyard barbecue in New Mexico nearly four years ago. Officials said the woman is a civilian who is not a Department of Defense employee.
Cooley was to be sentenced Monday morning and could face as much as seven years in jail as well as loss of rank, pay and benefits.
"Today marks the first time an Air Force general officer has been held responsible for his heinous actions," the woman's attorney, Ryan Guilds, said in a statement, the newspaper reported. "... Hopefully, this will not be as difficult for the next survivor."
Cooley was fired from his research laboratory position in January 2020 after an Air Force investigation and has worked in an administrative job since then. A message seeking comment was left for his attorney Saturday.
A year-and-a-half-long investigation by "CBS Evening News" anchor and managing editor Norah O'Donnell and the CBS News Investigative Unit into sexual assault within the U.S. military uncovered failures by leaders to address the issue. Over the course of the investigation, CBS News spoke with nearly two dozen survivors of sexual assault, whistleblowers who worked for the military's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program and families of suicide victims who say the military grossly mishandled reports of sexual assault. Then-Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy called the CBS News' series of reports "very powerful" and pledged the Army would take steps to tackle sexual assault in its ranks, and that the effort would be "one of the most comprehensive steps in accountability in the Army's history."