Las Vegas Review Journal: Tailhook victim criticizes ‘ludicrous’ sentence in Tuesday’s Nellis court-martial
Tailhook whistleblower and Protect Our Defenders Advisory Board Member Paula Coughlin is featured in this article from the Las Vegas Review Journal:
The Nellis Air Force Base major who pleaded guilty Tuesday to assault of an enlisted man and was ordered to forfeit $3,678 in pay epitomizes the military’s “antiquated, medieval justice system,” said a former Navy helicopter pilot who was a victim of the Tailhook scandal in Las Vegas in the early 1990s.
“I thought the sentencing was pretty ludicrous,” said Paula Coughlin, who blew the whistle on the 1991 Tailhook aviators conference at the Las Vegas Hilton. A number of officers were disciplined or denied advancement in rank after that scandal.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that they got any kind of guilty verdict out of it all. They watered down the charges and went for the easy ones,” Coughlin said in a telephone interview Wednesday from Florida, referring to the Nellis case.
