Another 8th Army personnel clerk has found herself in trouble:
An 8th Army staff sergeant was found guilty Wednesday of lying about having a college degree, conspiring with her husband to get promoted early, and then stealing the extra money she earned from her inflated rank.
Nekeda Gundy, 23, was court-martialed for telling officials she had gotten an associates degree online from Florida A&M University to increase her promotion points, and having her husband, Staff Sgt. Andre Gundy, 26, change her military test scores in an electronic database. Prosecutors said the Gundys together illegally earned almost $4,500 by Aug. 2007 because of the early promotions, and Nekeda Gundy earned almost $2,000 of that amount. [Stars & Stripes]
Now look at what she ended up getting sentenced to:
An 8th Army soldier Thursday lost more than the rank she was convicted of stealing.
However, Staff Sgt. Nekeda Gundy dodged a bad-conduct discharge.
An audible sigh — and several exclamations of “Praise Jesus” — passed through the audience when the head of the six-member court-martial panel read Gundy’s sentence: reduction in rank to private first class, forfeiture of one month’s pay of $1,152, a fine of $2,500 and 45 days restriction.
Gundy was convicted of larceny, conspiracy and making false official statements during a general court-martial on Wednesday.
After the trial Gundy, 23, said she was happy with the sentence, and still hopes to make the Army a career. [Stars & Stripes]
This is what kind of upsets me about these NCOs. They were in a position of trust and responsibility and they abused it to promote themselves and to fraud the government out of money. Only the first NCO has gone to trial so we still have to wait to see what will happen to the second one, but I find it interesting that the jury is going to allow someone like the convicted NCO to stay in the Army.
Take for example all the people convicted of Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) fraud in USFK. In the most recent case the staff sergeant convicted of BAH fraud cheated the government out of $2,600 which is less than what the personnel clerks above cheated the government. However, for simple BAH fraud that included no conspiracy between two people in a position of trust, the staff sergeant was given a bad conduct discharge and sentenced to prison for six months. There have been prior cases of BAH fraud where the person has been sentenced for one year in prison. Another example is a staff sergeant that conspired to steal AER money and he was given a bad conduct discharge and sentenced to a year in prison.
The promotion scam is just as fraudulent as the other cases yet the personnel clerk receives a slap on the wrist. Why is that you may ask? It is because she has two kids and is five months pregnant. I have seen this before where people get off easy because the person or people rendering judgment don’t want to punish the kids for the indiscretions of the parents. The military justice systems renders punishment case by case and criminals with families often receive lighter punishment and this is an obvious example of it.
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4:59 pm on October 29th, 2007 1
According to all those AFN commercials the UCMJ is the best form of justice out there.
5:45 pm on October 29th, 2007 2
I tend to agree because the serious criminals get sent away for a long time compared to people committing similar crimes in the US. Plus there has been a number of people such as the Haditha Marines and LT Pantano who were convicted of war crimes in the media but once they went to trial were found not guilty which they were which proves the system works.
9:20 pm on October 29th, 2007 3
Inconsistent punishment breeds discontent in the ranks. She should have gotten at least a bad conduct discharge. It’s as bad as or worse that favoritism.
When I was a junior in Germany awhile back, our CO talked about how anyone who got a DUI would be out of the service. Then and E-5 in the orderly room got a DUI – on the autobahn! Article 15 with a suspended reduction to E-4. Everyone, except maybe the E-5 with the DUI, lost all respect for that Major. Some junior enlisted got flamed for lesser violations (though some got off with a slap or the wrist for some the same – an example of inconsistency). There was no trust, expectation of fairness, or respect for that CO.
5:41 am on October 30th, 2007 4
The inconsistent punishment from what I have seen is simply from different people getting in trouble having varying sob stories. If a single soldier with no children had done this crime that soldier would have been slammed.
However from my experience it appears juries more so than judges can be affected by emotional pleas from people in trouble to not punish their families for their indiscretions.
This NCO should have been booted from the Army and instead received a slap on the wrist and will make her NCO rank back in no time. How does everyone in the Army feel about having her responsible for your paper work?
8:32 am on October 30th, 2007 5
Hey, GI…
I understand not wanting to “punish the children” for the actions of the parent by an empathetic judge or jury. I can even understand if they are swayed by echoes of “praise Jesus” or a few tears.
…but isn’t there something really, really crappy that a judge can do to punish the offender? Demote her to being in charge of cleaning toilets or digging holes for a year? Something so incredibly irritating or difficult that everyone on posts talks about it for years to come?
J!
7:18 pm on October 30th, 2007 6
I’d force them to move out of their command sponsored off-post mansion into government quarters on Hannam Village and take away their joint domicile privileges, but then I’d get investigated for EO and end up with a relief for cause.
Hmmmm….
4:25 pm on October 31st, 2007 7
[...] a side note compare the punishment for the NCO for lying on her housing form compared to the NCO I profiled earlier this week, who conspired with her husband to forge her promotion to staff sergeant and fraud the government [...]
1:14 pm on November 4th, 2007 8
[...] agree with GI at ROK Drop who wrote- This is what kind of upsets me about these NCOs. They were in a position of trust and [...]
4:34 am on November 7th, 2007 9
The husband of the matter was my NCO. When i first found out about this I was schocked. Im not saying what they did was right im just saying they were the frist to get caught. I will say this though! I also was a personnel clerk at 516th PSB. I’ve undated SFC,1SG and SGM records and i’ve seen the same stuff on there records. Awards, Schools, Degrees and a number of other things were false. I know when the system switched over to eMILPO some of there documents were back dated to 1900 but not all of them. I’ve seen awards and schools back dated to the same dates. Thats impossible to complete two totally diffrent schools at the same time. This isn’t something new and if some of them SGM and 1SG are investigated you will find the same things are happening.I myself wouldn’t have done it. To me they aren’t bad people i worked for him for a year. They both went to BNCOC together and they are hard chargers. He kept me out of trouble and had my back when nobody else did! I respect him for that. Not what he did but for the type of person he was. He is an awsome soldier and so is she.
9:50 am on November 7th, 2007 10
I agree EX_GI_Joe. Cheating on promotion points has been going on forever. The Army Correspondence Course Program used to be the easiest thing to cheat on. I wonder how many senior NCO’s got promoted on false ACCP records. I would imagine quite a few…
10:31 am on November 7th, 2007 11
I get it.
The system is designed so honest soldiers with integrity get out-promoted by lying shytbags… and the lying shytbags at the top perpetuate the system.
…well… that explains a lot.
5:28 pm on November 7th, 2007 12
BAH fraud has been going on for a long time as well and nobody seems to making excuses for the people that do it, so I see no excuse for what they did either and should be punished similarly.
7:51 pm on November 9th, 2007 13
Yup, people used to trade ACCP records all the time. They’d make a photocopy, cut out and tape their student information over top of the other person’s record, make another copy, and then turn it in for promotion points. It happened all the time.
By the way, I’m not making excuses for their behavior. It’s unethical as hell and should not be tolerated. I was merely pointing out that promotion point scams have been going on for a long time.
4:18 am on February 29th, 2008 14
i know this guy, he is a real a-hole. he is one of those types that know everything and sees everything. The type that is always talking and always lying about who and what he feels he is. Trust me if you served with him you would know this is his M.O. He had a good 1sg and he is a 12 minute 2 mile guy, I’m sure that helped. Why do I bring this up? Because it seems that as long as you look the part leaders will take up for you, despite the fact they know you are not worth spit. It’s about image. He will be a NCO in no time and a SGM down the road. I hope that part time New Yorker remembers that when one day in the future he has some young NCO head on the chopping block………..but knowing him, he won’t.
6:55 am on February 29th, 2008 15
If the guilty pair learned their lesson, it’ll be good for ‘em to stay in the service… Otherwise, well, at least they’ll have “adult supervision”…
7:55 pm on April 5th, 2008 16
When will the Army punish all the cheaters in this scam? They are easy to identify and are just out there laughing at the honest soldiers while counting there ill-gotten promotion money all the way to the bank. How many good soldiers have been cheated out of promotions by those who engage in promotion fraud? It is worse than BAH fraud in that way but both are ugly. If the system does not go after these miscreants than where does this stop? Just do the right thing and go after the bad guys. Painful but necessary.