Washington, Oct. 21 (ANI): Two US sailors are expected to receive administrative punishments, but not be criminally charged, in connection with the prostitution scandal involving US Secret Service in Colombia earlier this year.
The two sailors will be punished for hiring a prostitute and neglecting duty for drinking within eight hours before they had to report for duty, the official said.
More than six months after the scandal erupted, the two sailors were expected to be the final military members disciplined in the case.
According to the New York Daily News, in the military, non-judicial or administrative punishments can take a wide variety of forms, from docking service members' pay or confining them to quarters to assigning them additional duties for a certain length of time.
According to the report, a lawyer for one of the sailors had complained that his client, David Hawley, was not around at the time the prostitutes were alleged to be solicited.
The lawyer, Jeremiah Sullivan, said the sailors were unfairly stripped of their security clearances and reassigned to other tasks for months as they waited to see if they would be charged, the report said.
According to the military's investigation of the matter, the service members were investigated for bringing prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Colombia shortly before President Barack Obama arrived in the country for an April summit.
The scandal came to light after a public dispute over payment between a Secret Service agent and a prostitute at a Cartagena hotel spilled over into the hallway of the Hotel Caribe, the report said.
Eight Secret Service employees implicated in the incident were expelled and three were cleared of serious misconduct; at least two employees were fighting to get their jobs back, it added. (ANI)
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