Major General Jimmy “Chester-the-Molester” Grazioplene and his demons tell us much about the military judicial system. One of our loyal readers asked us to comment on the recent Army Times article about MG Grazioplene’s and the legal machinations that recently culminated.
The Army Times article by Todd South, who has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004. Todd was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
We think Todd South did an excellent job reporting on Chester-the-Molester Grazioplene for the Army Times, but we have questions and some comments that our MilitaryCorruption.com readers might consider. We tend to look at things a bit differently than our friends at the Army Times.
Below is Todd’s article with our comments inserted here and there…
Retired Army major general
reduced to second lieutenant
for sex crime conviction
The defense secretary reduced a retired Army major general to the rank of second lieutenant after he pleaded guilty last year in a Virginia court to sexually assaulting his daughter while in uniform.
COMMENT: Notice dear readers, he pleaded guilty in a civilian court and not a full blown court martial where unique military charges of conduct unbecoming an officer could not be added to his charge sheet. We think the Army wanted to avoid this case like the plague and did what they could to inoculate themselves with the military statute of limitations.
“The Secretary of Defense changed the retired grade of then-Major General James J. Grazioplene, United States Army Retired, to second lieutenant after determining that second lieutenant was the highest grade in which he served on active duty satisfactorily,” Pentagon spokeswoman Lisa Lawrence told Army Times in an email Monday.
COMMENT: Notice the choice of words, “was the highest grade in which he served on active duty satisfactorily.” The Veterans Administration will say it was the highest grade in which Grazioplene served “honorably.” And here’s the hundred dollar question, did Grazioplene receive and honorable discharge? We are betting he did, because there’s no mention of the characterization of his discharge either being “Other-than-Honorable,” or “Dishonorable” In this Army Times article. You tell us Army, is going home from his office to his on-base housing and raping his daughter an act that brought honor to the United States Army?
“This action may not be appealed,” she wrote. “Second Lieutenant Grazioplene will maintain any benefits or privileges authorized for retired officers in the grade of second lieutenant.”
COMMENT: Grazioplene will receive all the the benefits of anyone who has received an honorable discharge. How many enlisted and/or officers did Grazioplene convene a court martial for and what were those charges? Was he tossing people in prison while he was molesting his own daughter while wearing his uniform?
The horrific nightmare of a girl molested by her Army general father
The daughter of Army Maj. Gen. James Grazioplene recalls a childhood of abuse — and how the Army helped her seek justice.
Grazioplene, 71, started his military career with a commission at that same rank out of West Point in 1972. He rose to the rank of two-star general before retiring in 2005.
But his daughter, Jennifer Elmore, later brought allegations that through her entire childhood and at various posts both abroad and in the United States, her father had raped and molested her.
COMMENT: Through her entire childhood, this bastard was raping and molesting her. Was his daughter born after he was promoted to 1st. lieutenant and that’s why the military is calling his tenure as a 2nd lieutenant as honorable…. all the rest was despicably dishonorable. How many people are in Ft. Leavenworth right now who have done the same or less?
Army Times has a policy of not identifying by name survivors of sex crimes. Elmore agreed to be interviewed on multiple occasions and to be identified publicly in articles about Grazioplene.
The allegations were raised within the family in the years after she left home in the late 1980s, but came to the attention of military officials when Elmore reported the conduct to the Army CID agents at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 2015.
Two years later, on Aug. 26, 2017, Elmore would confront her father in a military courtroom during his Article 32 preliminary hearing. There, for the first time publicly, she outlined the decades of abuse she suffered.
But the military case faltered when a judge ruled the following year that charges couldn’t move forward due to a then-applicable three-year statute of limitations in the Uniform Code of Military Justice on rape or assault charges that occurred before 1986.
COMMENT: The military case didn’t “falter.” This was all orchestrated by the United States Army to dodge a scandal. If a junior officer or an enlisted man had been charged with raping their daughter for many years, the military would have done their level best to ignore any statute of limitations and exact the severest punishment possible. How much do you want to bet, that military personnel knew this MF was molesting his daughter, probably going back to when he was a 1st. lieutenant or captain? We think there is much more to this story than anyone knows.
Another statute of limitations, five years in such cases that occurred between 1986 and 2006, further stymied prosecuting later episodes of abuse.
The military case died.
That’s when Virginia prosecutors, not bound by the statute of limitations for crimes that had allegedly occurred while Grazioplene and his family were stationed in the state, took over.
In late 2018 a Prince William County grand jury indicted Grazioplene on three rape charges alleged to have happened while the family lived off post in Woodbridge, Virginia, from 1987 to 1988.
COMMENT: So, let’s understand this; all of the rapes and sexual assaults that occurred in other states and overseas were not charged? Did Chester the Molester Grazioplene get a pass on all those infractions by the Prince William County Grand Jury due to a jurisdictional issue?
The then-retired Grazioplene was arrested and jailed in December 2018, where he remained without bond for the next 18 months.
A 2020 trial date was set but pushed off for months due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Then, on July 8, 2020, Grazioplene agreed to plead guilty to aggravated sexual battery and was given time served with a suspended sentence of 20 years.
COMMENT: Given “time served” and a “suspended sentence,” that’s not enough punishment for what this MF has done. Busting him from Major General to 2nd lieutenant with a pension, an Honorable Discharge and full VA benefits tells us all we need to know about the pathetically unfair application of laws in the United States military. The flag-ranking officers of the United States military hold themselves above the law, because they are above the laws they impose on everyone else.
Shortly after the hearing, Elmore told Army Times that the public acknowledgement by her father of what he’d done to her meant everything.
“I wasn’t interested in retribution,” Jennifer told Army Times in 2020. “It was not about asking for something, other than to have the ability to speak the truth,” she said.
FINAL COMMENT: We are interested in retribution on behalf of all the people who are serving time in a military gulag for doing far less than Chester Grazioplene was doing on any given Saturday night to his own daughter. How many people who were on active duty heard “rumors” that he was chronically sexually assaulting his own daughter and didn’t do a GD thing?
I guess the Military Academy needs to revise its credo, “I will not lie, cheat, steal or rape, nor tolerate those who do.”
Nothing riles us more than people who hurt children or seniors. Knowing Chester-the-Molester Grazaioplene was given such a light punishment for the crimes he committed against his own daughter, then rewarded with an Honorable Discharge, simply makes us sick.
Yeah, he was busted from Major General to a second louie, which hits him in the pocket book, but we are betting this piece of crapola received an Honorable Discharge so he could keep his VA benefits, a little parting gift from the United States Army reserved only for flag-ranking perverts.
And, let’s not forget, Chester-the-Molester will also receive a military pension, a second lieutenant with 35 years of service. It’s not the $11,000 to $16,000 per month he was getting, but his pension is more than all those who received a Dishonorable Discharge.
Wanna bet he will be filing claims with the VA to ultimately receive a 100% disability rating for PTSD. Again, it won’t be $16K per month but he will have more than enough to live in a single wide mobile in Kingman, Arizona.
We have seen numerous examples of junior military officers who have been court martialed for fraternization …. not molestation, but fraternization and received a dishonorable discharge, a felony conviction and no pension from a general court martial convened by a flag-ranking officer just like Major General Pervert.
This is why MilitaryCorruption.com exists… to expose the incredible hypocrisy.
