Army soldier reprimanded for raping comrade’s wife gets 13 years after latest probe sparks wave of criminal charges
A U.S. Army soldier reprimanded for raping a comrade’s wife at a 2017 Super Bowl party has been sentenced to 13 years behind bars on a series of rape and sexual assault charges, most of them linked to incidents after the initial allegations were raised against him.
The accuser, Leah Ramirez, reported Staff Sgt. Randall Hughes to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command the day after the attack, the Army Times reported. She told investigators her husband spent the evening downing shots of whiskey with Hughes and another commanding officer, eventually passing out drunk at their home near Fort Bliss, Tex.
Once Ramirez managed to get her spouse to bed and clear out the party, she said Hughes approached her for sex, according to the report. When she refused his advances, he dragged her by the hair to a bedroom upstairs where he raped her.
Her allegations kicked off a year-long probe, with investigators ultimately concluding the evidence supported her claims. Rather than face a criminal trial however, Hughes was let off with just a slap on the wrist — a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand for his personnel file.
“They just told me the command said this is what it was — this is how it is,” Ramirez said.
A few months later, Hughes raped another woman in Fort Bliss, according to court documents.
From there, the accused officer transferred to Fort Dix and was stationed in New Jersey, where he was again hit with allegations by several women, including his teen daughter.
Agents with the Criminal Investigative division in 2020 launched another probe into Hughes after spotting the General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand in his record. The investigation resulted in criminal charges spanning more than a decade and involving five victims.
Hughes copped to a plea deal that included both 2017 crimes and on March 30 pleaded guilty to two counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault consummated by battery, one count of sexual abuse of a child, one count of assault consummated by a battery on a child, one count of indecent language and one count of adultery.
His now-17-year-old daughter, Lesley Madsen, told the Army Times, which named her at her request and with her mother’s permission, her father drugged and forced himself on her on March 25, 2020. Hughes did not plead guilty to charges stemming from his daughter’s rape accusations.
“He was taking a plea deal, so he wanted to plead to get the minimum amount of years,” said Madsen. “If I said no, then it would have been years of court. … It was the easiest way to give everyone that closure and just put him away before he did anything to anybody else.”
Victims in some of the more recent cases said their suffering could have been prevented had Hughes been prosecuted years earlier in connection with the 2017 cases.
Retired Col. Don Christensen, former chief prosecutor for the Air Force and current president of Protect Our Defenders, said that declining to prosecute sexual offenders is fairly typical within the U.S. armed services. He was not involved in Hughes’ trial but is familiar with the case.
“Despite the persistent myth that suspected military sex offenders are prosecuted at a high rate, the reality is the chain of command rarely ever sends a suspect to court,” he told the Army Times.
“[The command] should be horrified their failure to hold the rapist accountable enabled a sex offender to perpetrate a crime wave against multiple victims.”
