Michael Brown Okinawa Assault Incident
The Michael Brown Okinawa attempted assault incident arose from an attempted indecent assault by U.S. Marine Corps Major Michael Brown on a Filipina bartender, V. N. (initials of victim), in Okinawa, Japan, on November 2, 2002. V.N. accused Brown of attempting to rape her and throwing her cell phone into a nearby river; Brown denied the rape charges. The victim later recanted her testimony, though prosecutors presented evidence that she had received a cash payment just before doing so.
The case received extensive attention in the Japanese media, especially in Okinawa, and the crime sparked a public debate over the U.S. military presence in Japan, the privileges of extraterritoriality, as well as the fair trial practices of Japanese legal system and the Japanese police. The case involved the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan and the U.S.–Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).
On July 8, 2004, after a 19-month trial, Brown was convicted by a Japanese court of attempted indecent assault and destruction of private property and received a one-year suspended prison sentence. As a result of this incident and others involving crimes committed by U.S. military personnel in Japan, both countries entered into negotiations aimed at modifying the SOFA in July 2003; ultimately, no changes were made to the agreement. In 2005, Brown was arrested and charged with kidnapping in the United States. He was demoted and involuntarily retired from the military in 2006 and at his trial in 2009 entered a Kennedy plea, receiving probation on the felony conviction.
Read more about Michael Brown Okinawa Assault Incident: Crime and Arrest, Pre-trial, Trial, SOFA Controversy, Subsequent Arrest and Conviction
Famous quotes containing the words michael, brown, assault and/or incident:
“Sometimes we have to go through the darkness alone, before we can see the light.”
—Adele Comandini. Edward Sutherland. Michael O’Brien (Charles Winninger)
“in the brown baked features
The eyes of a familiar compound ghost
Both intimate and unidentifiable.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The treatment of the incident of the assault upon the sailors of the Baltimore is so conciliatory and friendly that I am of the opinion that there is a good prospect that the differences growing out of that serious affair can now be adjusted upon terms satisfactory to this Government by the usual methods and without special powers from Congress.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)