Marine gets six months confinement in 2017 hazing death of Green Beret
Judges use a small wooden mallet to signal for attention or order.
A military court has sentenced Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Mario A. Madera-Rodriguez to six months in confinement, hard labor and a reduction in rank for his connection to the 2017 death of an Army Green Beret.
An all-male, eight-person jury handed down the sentence to Madera-Rodriguez for his role in the hazing death of Green Beret Logan Melgar, who was killed in Mali in 2017, CBS News reports.
According to another service member who was involved in Melgar’s death, a group of service members, which included two Navy SEALs, broke down Melgar’s bedroom door and bound his wrists and ankles with duct tape.
Melgar was strangled to death when one of the service members placed him in a chokehold. The members said they intended to embarrass Melgar for what they deemed to be personal slights.
Madera-Rodriguez was spared from a maximum sentence, which would have included 27.5 years in confinement and a dishonorable discharge. The “hard labor” that the marine was sentenced to will be determined by his command and could consist of picking up trash, mowing grass or digging ditches.
Earlier this month, a military court found Madera-Rodriguez guilty of involuntary manslaughter, hazing, false statements, conspiracy to commit assault and battery and conspiracy to obstruct justice, CBS notes.
CBS reports the three other service members who were involved in Melgar’s death have all pleaded guilty. Madera-Rodriguez was the only one to take his case to trial.