On Tuesday, attorneys for Brig Gen Jeffrey Sinclair had said that they will attempt to renegotiate a plea bargain for their client with a new group of military officials. The decision followed after a judge ruled that Sinclair's clase was improperly influenced by political motives, Seattle PI said in a report.
The defense team's decision had urged Judge Col James Pohl to dismiss the jury, which is composed of military generals around the world.
Seattle PI said Pohl refused to dismiss the charges lodged against Sinclair on Monday and said that emails in relation to the case against the Army general showed signs of unlawful military influence in the decision to reject Sinclair's plea bargain in January by Fort Bragg officials.
The 51 year-old ex-deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division has been charged with forcing a female captain to perform oral sex on him twice in Afghanistan in 2011. The said incidents allegedly happened during the two's extramarital affair that ran for three years. Seattle PI said Sinclair admitted to the affair but denied the assault charges filed against him. It has been said that should Sinclair get convicted, he would be the highest-ranking military officer in the US court-martialed on sex-related charges, and could stand to receive a life sentence.
Sinclair's defense have painted the plaintiff as a liar and has made the allegations up after she read email exchanges between Sinclair and another female.
The emails in question were an exchange that decided the rejection of Sinclair's request to drop the sexual assault charges in exchange of a guilty plea, Seattle PI said. He was turned down in December last year.
The judge reportedly clarified that the entire Sinclair case was not tainted, but would have run its course smoothly if the prosecutors had given the emails to Sinclair's defense team sooner.
"The only reason we are in this conundrum is because of the government's late notice," Pohl had said.
