A former Air Force trainer was sentenced Monday to three months in jail and given a bad-conduct discharge for assaulting a pair of recruits and pursuing five illicit relationships.
As part of a plea bargain, Staff Sgt. Ryan Deraas said he was guilty of two charges and eight specifications of misconduct. He admitted to having sex with a woman while she was in technical training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
Deraas, who had faced up to one year in jail in a special court-martial, tearfully conceded that he'd made bad decisions as an instructor, a job he wanted after being mistreated in boot camp.
"I have no one else to blame for my actions. I made horrible choices,” Deraas said.The judge, Lt. Col. Matthew van Dalen, deliberated for more than two hours after Capt. Colin Eichenberger, the defense attorney, asked that his client receive far less than what the prosecution wanted: 10 months in prison and a bad-conduct discharge.
Prosecutors said that was the right sentence after charging Deraas with having unprofessional relationships with five technical training students, willful dereliction of duty by maltreating recruits, and assault and battery.
The defense said Deraas was an outstanding airman in Turkey and in the Iraq war. His mother, Patricia Deraas of Bismarck, N.D., said he joined the Air Force at 17.
“When I heard what Ryan was charged with, I was shocked and disappointed,” she said.
Deraas is the latest trainer accused of misconduct in the Lackland sex scandal, which has brought 32 trainers under investigation for personal and sexual misconduct with 62 victims.
Deraas assaulted recruits Mark George Lacava II and now-Senior Airman Charles Wiley Jr. He also ordered airmen to fill their canteens with water from dorm toilets.
“I drank the water pretty much as a last resort,” Senior Airman Adrian Johnson testified in a Dec. 11 evidentiary hearing.
No witnesses took the stand for the brief trial, but Lacava and Wiley testified in the hearing that they had spent an afternoon drinking water as they prepared to give samples for a drug test.