A US Marine tied to the “Marines United” Facebook group was court-martialed last month, the first to face trial in relation to the scandal involving the non-consensual sharing of explicit images which came to light in March.
The individual pleaded guilty at a summary-court martial “related to the nonconsensual sharing of explicit photos on the Marines United Facebook group,” according to a press release issued Monday by the US Marine Corps.
According to the release, the service member was sentenced to 10 days confinement, had their rank reduced by three grades and was forced to forfeit two-thirds of their monthly pay. The release added that the process to administratively separate the Marine from the service branch is “underway.”
The statement said that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) had scanned “nearly 131,000 images across 168 social media sites” and was reviewing information relating to “89 persons of interest as a result of incidents related to the nonconsensual sharing of explicit photos and other online misconduct.”
Of those 89 people, 22 are civilians and 67 are active duty or reserve Marines.
The statement said five of those cases remain under investigation by NCIS while “62 have been passed to appropriate Marine commands for disposition,” adding that in addition to the one court martial, there have also been two administrative separations, seven “non-judicial punishments” and 22 adverse administrative actions.
While individual punishments are carried out by individual commands within the Marines, the release also noted the work of the special Task Force that was launched shortly after it was discovered that hundreds of explicit photos of current and former female Marines and other service members may have been posted on a private Facebook page.
“We will not tolerate a lack of respect for any member of our team,” Gen. Glenn Walters, the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps and head of the Task Force, said in a statement accompanying the press release.