According to the U.S. Business Insider website on the 6th, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Tuesday local time that a former Fort Bragg soldier was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for falsely reporting about kidnapping and having sex with a 12-year-old girl he falsely called his “girlfriend”.
On October 21, 2018, James Murdoch Peele, 19, of the 82nd Airborne Division took a girl through the window of her grandmother’s house, prosecutors said.
According to the judiciary, Peel then drove back to his home in South Carolina from North Carolina, and then returned to the barracks with the girl, claiming that she was his “girlfriend” who had turned 18. Prosecutors say FBI agents tracked Peel to his military camp, where he had sex with the girl.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the girl said she told Peele her age, but Peel responded that age was just a figure. She also said that the kidnapping was falsely reported, but she denied that she was involved in the planning of fake kidnapping.
Prosecutors said Peel admitted to having sex with the girl, who was charged with statutory rape, first-degree kidnapping and theft.
