Former Wright-Patt commander is now confined on base
Apr. 16—Col. Christopher Meeker has started the confinement portion of his sentence on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the base he once led as installation commander.
"He is at the confinement facility on base," Derek Kaufman, spokesman for the Air Force Materiel Command, said Wednesday.
In a one-day court-martial at the base Tuesday, Meeker, the former commander of the 88th Air Base Wing, pled guilty to willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer and fraternization.
During the trial, Meeker acknowledged having a personal and sexual relationship with a non-commissioned officer at Wright-Patterson, a staff sergeant, after Lt. Gen. Donna Shipton, commander of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at the base, ordered him not to have contact with the NCO.
As part of a plea agreement revealed during the trial, prosecutors asked a judge to dismiss a specification of extramarital sexual conduct against Meeker.
He was sentenced to 21 days confinement, a reprimand, and forfeiture of $14,000, or $7,000 of pay a month for two months.
In military courts-martial, the sentencing phase immediately follows the findings phase, which determines guilt or innocence, Air Force Materiel Command said in a statement.
"Absent restrictions imposed by terms of the plea agreement, the maximum punishment was dismissal, reprimand, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for seven years," AFMC said.
Meeker told a judge that he "willfully disobeyed" the no-contact order, that his behavior demonstrated a lack of personal and professional discipline, and he acted "selfishly, for my own personal happiness."
Prosecutors argued that Meeker's contact with the staff sergeant took place well after Shipton had extended the original no-contact order in March last year.
In an interview with Air Force investigators, the NCO painted a portrait of nearly daily contact with Meeker, electronic conversations wiped away by the Signal app and meetings for sex "four to five times a week," at a time when the no-contact order was in place.
The staff sergeant has since left the Air Force Force.
"Col. Meeker has been full of apologies and devoid of resolution," a prosecutor, Capt. Connor McAfee, said in a closing argument during the trial at the headquarters of the 88th Air Base Wing.
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