“You need a white man to show you how to act. John would get a lot of letters from other prisoners over the next few months, and while they weren’t always explicit, some certainly were. It was around this time that the letters started sliding under his cell door. His second cellmate was also a lifer, and friendly enough, but after a few days the man asked to be paired with another lifer, so John was moved again. John requested and received a new cell assignment. But something about him seemed a little off, and that night, John says he awoke and saw this man sitting at a desk, wide awake, and staring right at him. His first cellmate was an older man, black like John, who was serving a life sentence, and he didn’t say much. But he also noticed that he was one of the youngest prisoners on the block. Over the next few days, while bringing trays of food around the blocks for his new kitchen job, John would learn that he had been placed in one of the nicer units (another he saw “looked like a basement, with the lights busted out”). Once inside, he could try grimacing to look tough, as he had in his early mugshots, but he couldn’t hide his skinny frame or his high-pitched voice. Standing in a line with several dozen other men, John stripped off his navy blue scrubs, squatted, and coughed to prove he wasn’t hiding anything. “It was pretty ragged,” he recalled recently, “a tear down.” It was still wintery in April, and his state-issued jacket was poor protection against the drafts coming through the broken windows, shattered by men who had passed through before. The town of 11,000 residents, which sits in the remote center of the state, houses five prisons, and over the years, it has earned the nickname “I Own Ya.” John, who was 17, had already gotten over the initial fear of going to an adult prison-he had spent several months at a county jail near Detroit and an intake facility in Jackson-but he also knew he would be spending longer at this lonely outpost, a minimum of three years for a couple of home invasions. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan. Three years ago, the young man who would later be known as John Doe 1 shuffled into the Richard A. She intends to read a victim impact statement at the sentencing hearing, Goldstein reported.This piece was reported through The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. "While this process has been incredibly invasive, not only for me, but also my immediate family and closest friends, I know there are countless other people who have been silenced forever, like Vanessa," Cooley's sister-in-law added, according to the Air Force Times. Vanessa Guillén, who was sexually harassed and then murdered by a fellow soldier in 2020. She also referenced the story of Army Spc. "Doing the right thing, speaking up, telling the truth, shouldn't be this hard." "The price for peace in my extended family was my silence, and that price was too high," Cooley's sister-in-law said in a statement read by her attorney, Ryan Guilds. The assault was like an "F5 tornado," Cooley's sister-in-law testified, "ruining everything in its path."Īfter the verdict, she said she hoped the next sexual assault survivor would have an easier time coming forward than she did, Goldstein reported. She also said Cooley yanked her hand and touched it to his crotch. She testified that, in the car, Cooley said he fantasized about having sex with her and pinned her against the driver's side door, kissing her and touching her breast and groin without her consent. (Cooley's sister-in-law consented to having her relationship to Cooley disclosed by the media, but not to be named.)
Sentencing is scheduled to begin Monday, and the two-star general faces dismissal from the military and up to seven years in prison, according to WYSO reporter Leila Goldstein.Ĭooley was commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory, but he was relieved of command in early 2020 during the investigation into the allegations against him.Īt trial at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, Cooley's sister-in-law said Cooley requested a ride after a 2018 barbecue where he drank alcohol.
He was acquitted on two other "specifications" of the sexual assault charge - specifically that he allegedly caused the victim to touch him over his clothes and that Cooley touched the victim's breasts and genitals through her clothes.Ĭooley had pleaded not guilty. Cooley was found guilty on Saturday of abusive sexual contact for forcibly kissing his sister-in-law after a barbecue in 2018. military has ended with the first-ever conviction of an Air Force general in a court-martial. Cooley speaks during a press conference inside the National Museum of the United States Air Force on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 2019.Ī historic trial within the ranks of the U.S.