Soldiers in gay-porn case may be kicked out
3 from 82nd Airborne face courts-martial
By Kelly Kennedy
Times staff writer
Investigators recommended that seven 82nd Airborne soldiers implicated in participating in gay pornography be forced out of the Army.
Three of those soldiers — Spc. Richard T. Ashley, Pfc. Wesley K. Mitten and Pvt. Kagen B. Mullen, all of the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment — face courts-martial on charges of pandering, sodomy and wrongfully engaging in sexual acts with another person while being filmed with the purpose of broadcasting over the Internet for money.
Mullen, who a unit spokesman said is married, was also charged with adultery.
The other four unnamed soldiers received nonjudicial punishment through an Article 15 hearing for underage drinking, drunken driving, being intoxicated while on division-ready status and adultery.
The four not facing courts-martial received the maximum nonjudicial punishment allowed: reduction in rank to private, 45 days’ restriction to the unit area, 45 days of extra duty and forfeiture of a half-month’s pay over two months.
All seven soldiers were from two companies in the 508th.
“The seriousness of the charges for the three with courts-martial are more grave,” said Maj. Thomas Earnhardt, 82nd Airborne Division spokesman.
The charges have stunned a group of soldiers celebrated for the ability to rapidly deploy, demonstrated when 82nd paratroopers arrived in New Orleans five hours after being called in after Hurricane Katrina last summer and again when they deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq to help with elections last fall.
“We are a disciplined organization here,” Earnhardt said. “We take pride in the fact that our soldiers will do what’s right even when no one’s looking.
“When something like this happens, it’s personally upsetting to every member of the unit.”
It’s also puzzling.
“We all wonder,” Earnhardt said. “Why would anyone go down that road?”
Online evidence
the Web site in question is based in Fayetteville, N.C., and registered with Network Solutions, LLC, to an individual identified as Dennis Ashe, who did not respond to e-mails. a phone listing on the Web site has been disconnected.
The Web site is still up, though entry now requires a password and a fee, payable online by credit card. Before the charges, parts of the site were accessible to the public.
The site shows pictures of men sprawled across beds in cheap hotel rooms with empty bottles of Jim Beam whiskey on bedside tables. Often, they sit alone, bits of clothing missing as one moves through the still frames.
Sometimes, they sit side by side, their expressionless faces seemingly determined not to make eye contact with the other men in the room.
And some frames — and downloadable videos — demonstrate why investigators might know who was “wrongfully engaging in sexual acts with another person with the purpose of broadcasting over the Internet for money.”
“Real military men: 100 percent amateur,” the site advertises, then gives hints at its authenticity: All names have been covered, sometimes by flipping up the uniform pocket flap, but the famous All-American patch shows, as does the skull with a telltale Airborne red beret tattooed on a bare shoulder.
Apparently, one 82nd Airborne soldier didn’t need a tattoo or the unit patch to recognize a fellow red devil and turn him in Jan. 20.
“The Web site was brought to the chain of command’s attention by a member of the unit,” Earnhardt said. “The command confirmed it and turned them in.”
Money, the universal motivator
Money is the common interest for those who appear on adult-oriented Web sites and those who run them, said a sex-industry expert.
“The industry’s interested in making money and getting publicity,” said Luke Ford, author of “A History of X: 100 Years of Sex in Film.” “They lure people in the same way Microsoft or McDonald’s lures people in — the same way the Army tries to lure people into enlisting.”
Ford said men who become involved in gay porn often start by modeling, then move gradually into nude shots. Some then go on to heterosexual scenes and then gay scenes, he said, but it takes a certain personality.
“It’s not surprising,” he said of people willing to do nude shots and sex scenes. “Someone who’s going to jump in front of a camera is going to be more willing to exhibit oneself.” And it doesn’t necessarily mean any of the men who participate on the site are gay, Ford said.
Earnhardt stressed the case wasn’t about the soldiers’ sexual preferences. “This is strictly a case of misconduct.”
He added that the legal response would have been the same had it been a straight Web site or female soldiers.
Army officials refused to release the ages and hometowns of the charged soldiers to protect them from further embarrassment, Earnhardt said. They have been moved to another unit for their own protection.
According to a Fort Bragg release, all seven soldiers have been recommended for separation from the Army for serious misconduct.