As General’s Sex Assault Trial Opens, Accuser Describes Violence and Threats
The New York Times reports:
At one point putting her head in her hands and sobbing, the Army captain who has accused Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair of sexual assault took the witness stand on Friday on the first day of his closely watched court-martial. During five hours of testimony, the 34-year-old captain chronicled in detail a three-year affair that included casual sex at an operating base in Iraq and in a hotel room in North Carolina, but also, she said, violent moments where he forced her to perform oral sex and threatened to kill her if she disclosed their relationship.
Under questioning from the prosecution, the captain, a military intelligence officer, described the affair as often tender, saying, “I wanted to believe I meant something to him.” But it was also volatile and, over time, increasingly frightening, she said.
At one point, the captain said, she told the general, the former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, that she looked forward to meeting his wife. But he angrily said that would not happen. “He told me that if I ever said anything to her or anyone else about he and I, he would kill me,” the captain said, adding that he also threatened her family.
