Senior Guardsman to be court-martialed for malfeasance in office?

A top official in the Massachusetts National Guard faces possible removal by court-martial after state and federal investigations uncovered a range of alleged improprieties, including misusing federal money, hiring a convicted felon to do legal work, and threatening a whistleblower.

Yesterday, Murray received a hand-delivered letter accusing him of “waste, fraud, and abuse’’ and ordering him to resign by day’s end or face a court-martial convened by Governor Deval Patrick. State officials could not find a documented court-martial in recent Massachusetts history.

Murray informed the Guard that he would fight the charges, officials said.

State officials last encountered a major problem with the arcane state law on court-martials in 1999, when Cellucci fired the controversial head of the Guard, Raymond Vezina, after reports that he allegedly pressured subordinates to make political donations and wore the uniform of a higher-ranking officer in a Veterans Day parade. Vezina sued, charging that he could not be removed except by court-martial

Boston.com is reporting.

I think the same goes for most states, that there aren’t recent documented instances of courts-martial.  I can say I started one in Pennsylvania some years ago, but it was interrupted by a general discharge agreement mid-trial.  I exclude of course cases where the person is in a Title 10 status for deployment.

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4 responses to “Senior Guardsman to be court-martialed for malfeasance in office?”

  1. Viking says:

    Thanks for the info!

  2. Andrewdb says:

    The California NG has had several CMs in the past 4 or 5 years. None that I am aware of in that time period involved officers, and I believe the enlisted troops were fairly junior.

  3. Viking says:

    Thanks again. For me this raises the question of how do we find and track this type of information. For clients and potential clients it’s important to know. Of course we have the same problem with active duty cases, but there seems to be more “sources” information. You know the “uniform” code for NG seems bogged down in lassitude, but that would be a place it seems to have something like CAAF’s annual report.

  4. andrewdb says:

    I should add that those were GCMs. There have also been a number of SCMs, primarily for AWOL offenses.

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