WASHINGTON—Cpl. Aaron C. Masa befriended a fellow Marine during field training in North Carolina. But behind his buddy’s back, Masa sexually abused his 3-year-old stepdaughter and took sexually explicit photos of her and the Marine’s baby girl.
A military judge convicted Masa last year of sexual abuse of a child and production of child pornography, according to court records and other documents detailing the case. Under the terms of a pretrial agreement, Masa pleaded guilty and received 30 years in prison.
The sexual assault of military dependents occurs hundreds of times each year, according to data the Defense Department provided exclusively to The Associated Press. There were at least 1,584 substantiated cases between fiscal years 2010 and 2014, according to the data, which is the most current available. The abuse is committed most often by male enlisted troops, followed by family members.
The figures offer greater insight into the sexual abuse of children committed by service members, a problem of uncertain scale due to a lack of transparency into the military’s legal proceedings. With more than 1 million military dependents, the number of cases appears statistically small. But for a profession that prides itself on honor and discipline, any episodes of abuse cast a pall.
Those numbers fall well-short of offering a full picture.
The ages of the offenders and victims, the locations of the incidents and the branch of service that received the report of sexual abuse were omitted. The Defense Department said in a statement that “information that could unintentionally uniquely identify victims was withheld from release to eliminate possible ’re-victimization' of the innocent.”
It’s also unclear how many of the incidents resulted in legal action. The cases represent substantiated occurrences of child sexual abuse reported to the Defense Department’s Family Advocacy Program, which does not track judicial proceedings, the department said.
An AP investigation published in November found more inmates are in military prisons for child sex crimes than for any other offense. But the military’s opaque justice system keeps the public from knowing the full extent of their crimes or how much time they spend behind bars.
