U.S. military botched criminal record that hurt former members

The U.S. Army launched a botched investigation that wrongfully and misleadingly led to criminal accusations being placed on soldier's records which led to them being denied what should have been their pensions and in some cases denied gun permits.

It affected more than 2,400 soldiers.

It started when the Army initiated a recruitment program though a private contracting company that paid out bonuses which happened to be in violation of federal law. Later the Army then blamed the temporary recruiters who had been paid bonuses, even though they were only doing what they had been told to do.

Adequate records were not kept. The investigators used the assumption that if those who had been recruited could not remember who the recruiter was, that it must have been fraud. Even though the investigators contacted the people years later after they had forgotten.

It may have been political. The army spent a lot of money on the investigation and then didn't have much to show for it.

In one case, a man who was already several years into a career as a police officer was denied a concealed weapons permit. He had to contact the licensing officials to figure out why. His record, which had been submitted by the Army to the FBI criminal database, claimed that he had been arrested and charged with "aggravated identity theft, wire fraud and fraud". This despite the fact that he had never been arrested and was not even aware that had been any accusations against him. The record made it look like he had a pending felony charge, which meant he could not renew his police credentials, and so the department fired him.

In other cases it has prevented soldiers from being promoted and destroyed their careers. (It is expected that soldiers will eventually receive promotion and increase in pay after some years, since the starting pay is very low)

Fifty-three soldiers and former soldiers asked the Army to remove the reports from their records but the Army denied every single request.

This is an example of people suffering ramifications due vague allegations and no due process.

Army injustice: Thousands of soldiers, veterans slapped with misleading criminal record | Fox News, Hannah Ray Lambert, October 16, 2022

 

Actually, I see the problem there not with the Army itself, but with the local authorities that use such things in reports.

Me, I have a huge freaking problem when agencies use ARRESTS as a reason to deny somebody, and not CONVICTIONS. People can be arrested for almost anything, and that should not matter at all, ever. We are a nation of laws and procedures, and unless somebody is CONVICTED, then a single arrest without a conviction should not matter at all in such a case.

Period.

And yes, I have run across such nonsense in the past. My Ex was arrested for child abuse back in 1997, accused of beating our son. Of course, in the investigation it came out that it was our daughter that did it. Just a simple case of siblings getting in a fight. The charges were all dropped, but years later she was denied a nursing license in Texas because of that faulty arrest. And when we moved back to California it was a problem getting her license reinstated, once again because of a single faulty arrest almost two decades prior.

To me, this speaks much more about how local officials will use the most petty of things, even arrests without convictions to deny individuals without due process. So do not scream at the Army because they had an investigation, scream at the local authorities that are denying people based on a single arrest and not a conviction. After all, under the law an individual is innocent unless convicted. And these individuals were not convicted of anything.