According to a source, a US Army staff sergeant who got only a reprimand for rapping the wife of a young soldier was sentenced to 13 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge after being exposed as a serial rapist who victimized his own daughter.
According to the Army Times, Leah Ramirez claimed to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command in 2017 that Staff Sgt. Randall Hughes assaulted her at her home near Fort Bliss, Texas, during a Super Bowl celebration.
According to the news source, her husband was passed out unconscious after Hughes, his superior, persuaded him to down shots of whiskey during the night.
Hughes allegedly pulled Ramirez by her hair and raped her after she had put her husband to bed and everyone had left.
“I waited until the morning and then I went to the hospital to get checked,” she told the Army Times. “It took CID 48 hours to get into my house for evidence, so I lived in the crime scene for 48 hours. And then, it took three years to do anything.”
The woman’s accusations were found to be plausible after a year-long investigation by military investigators, but she was later told by a victim’s advocate that her rapist would not be charged.
According to the paper, Ramirez discovered that the creep would receive a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand in his personnel file.
“I was told CID had enough evidence to believe it happened, and Fort Bliss still didn’t do anything,” Ramirez told the Army Times. “They just told me the command said this is what it was — this is how it is.”
Hughes raped his then-girlfriend at the El Paso-based Fort Bliss a few months after sexually assaulting Ramirez, according to court records quoted by the outlet.
Hughes’ own teenage daughter later accused him of rape after he moved to Fort Dix, New Jersey, where CID agents conducted an investigation after discovering the reprimand in his files, according to the Army Times.
This time, the investigation resulted in criminal charges that spanned more than ten years and involved five victims, with Hughes agreeing to a plea deal that included both of the 2017 crimes.
He admitted to two counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault by battery, one count of child sexual abuse, one count of assault by battery on a child, one count of indecent language, and one count of adultery.
Hughes is accused of rape dating back to 2006, but the case was not published at the time.
According to military prosecutors, he assaulted his then-wife at Fort Carson, Colorado, but the charge was dismissed as part of the plea bargain.
The deal also averted accusations that he ordered his then-girlfriend not to talk to agents investigating Ramirez’s case. He was also cleared of charges of cutting the woman with a broken glass bottle.
Hughes raped his daughter on March 25, 2020, after giving her sleeping medicine, according to the investigation. In the plea agreement, he did not confess to that charge, but he did admit to sexual harassment and assault of a child.
Hughes was not interested in the girl’s life when she decided to move in with him in 2017 at the age of 14, according to her mother, Chayla Madsen.
