U.S. to court martial soldier accused of rape after Japanese authorities drop charges

Thursday 27th November, 06:00 AM JST

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Taka313 at 02:43 PM JST - 27th November

All I will say on the matter is that if the Soldier is convicted, it certainly will say a lot about "Japanese justice" for non-Japanese.

Taka
techall at 02:55 PM JST - 27th November

If you are not handing the money straight to the prostitute.

Being party to prositution, whether as a customer, pimp or brothel owner, is Trafficing in Persons. This is one of the biggest social issues of the day as it is estimated that close to 1,000,000 people are trafficed each year. Whether the prositute is there willingly or not it is still creating the market and the shortage of willing prostitutes will be filled by un-willing ones. Working with the U.S. military we were required to take TIPs training every month. I believe Mr. Hopstock knew this and all the other service men using "hooker hill" had better get the message or they will face serious consequences.
mcheeky at 04:31 PM JST - 27th November

techall, sounds like a great way to make a bad situation worse. Prostitution is not going to disappear, and military men stationed overseas will either have their prostitutes or get up to worse business.

Far better to set up some "rules of engagement". They sure would have averted this particular disaster.
techall at 04:45 PM JST - 27th November

mcheeky: Believe me, the U.S. DOD is never going to set "rules of engagement" for use of prostitution. Granted, the world's oldest profession is not going to go away but the Department of Defence (and any other U.S. Government entity) is going to disuade their personnel from engaging in it either as procurers or suppliers.
nagoyait at 05:13 PM JST - 27th November

techall - "This is why the J-police did not charge Hopstock." How do you know this??
techall at 05:15 PM JST - 27th November

It was in another news paper article. I'm trying to find it again so I can post a link.
techall at 05:47 PM JST - 27th November

Here's a report on the condition He/She has:

Testifying by telephone, Cmdr. Elizabeth Tipton said she examined Hazel in August and found the young woman had "androgen insensitivity syndrome." She said Hazel had the outward appearance of a woman, except she had no cervix.

"She is someone who is chromosomally a male," Tipton said. However, the condition made her resistant to testosterone and she developed female genitalia.
sensei258 at 06:14 PM JST - 27th November

I've said this before, even if the girl, guy, or whatever was engaged in consensual sex for money, if she/he/it says ow, stop. The guy had better pull out right then because that next "downstroke" is rape.
techall at 06:24 PM JST - 27th November

nagoyait: Found it! http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=57892

second paragrahp from the bottom, is that bizzare or what?
BBLeo at 07:04 PM JST - 27th November

This soldier has thrown away for the rest of his life his own future. And now he is 'Devil in Detail' without US flag. However, I'm not so sure about this young girl. I don't believe that rape was a real reason/motive. There is something else that has constracted this case.
presto345 at 09:13 PM JST - 27th November

What a lot of talk from experts here. The girl says she was raped, the guy says not so. He has a history of prostitute visits and stands accused of other violations. He is of course likely to go down for this. The military doesn't want these guys and will deal with this character, whether the girl embellished her testimony or not. The Japanese judiciary is well rid of this case; the USAF are capable enough to deal with this.
Alphaape at 12:12 AM JST - 28th November

It was also reported in the Stars & Stripes articles on this case, that the victim had also lied about her working status. It seems that before she/he came to Okinawa, she had worked as a hostess in Hong Kong.

Not that it's an excuse, but I think the defense will probably try to cite this as evidence to try to discredit her account of the incident.

No matter what, this guy's turkey is cooked. Not only for just the rape, but when he finds out that he has thrown it all away for someone who is "chromoznially a man" probably adds more to his mental misery.
the_sicilian at 08:30 AM JST - 28th November

What I don't like is the manner that they (AP) relate this "crime" to other "crimes" that came out as no Japanese punishment for lack of evidence, but the US side doing all of the work. This is just PR for the military, to show that they are (forgive the phrase) "hard on their own".

Addiu
Nessie at 02:04 PM JST - 29th November

Army specialist Ronald Hopstock

What, he specializes in "army"? Dumb job title.
BurakuminDes at 12:33 AM JST - 4th December

Where does the american defence ministry recruit their personnel from? Prisoners on release? Elementary school dropouts? Narcotics anonymous meetings? Im being serious, no offence intended to all the career-minded professionals serving in the american military reading this... .