Former Pennsylvania National Guardsman sentenced to prison for assault

By LES STEWART [Lebanon, PA Daily News]

A Pennsylvania National Guardsman was sentenced Wednesday [April 21] to Lebanon County prison for three months to two years for sexually assaulting a woman in a Fort Indiantown Gap barracks in December 2007. He was one of three soldiers charged in the case.

President Judge John C. Tylwalk sentenced 28-year-old Alan W. Ledford Jr. of South Coopersburg on misdemeanor charges of indecent assault and simple assault. Ledford pleaded guilty in February as part of a plea agreement with the office of the Lebanon County District Attorney. In exchange for his guilty plea, a more serious felony charge of sexual assault filed was dismissed.

Sean P. McMenamin, 25, of Pottstown was also scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, but his defense attorney is involved in defending another client in a homicide trial in another county this week, Tylwalk said. McMenamin will be sentenced at a later date. Ledford and McMenamin were scheduled to go on trial in February, but both pleaded guilty.

A third defendant in the case, Matthew S. Taggart, 25, of Springfield, Delaware County, pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced in June to three months to two years in Lebanon County prison for indecent assault and simple assault.

They were charged with sexually assaulting a then-36-year-old Lebanon County woman at a Fort Indiantown Gap barracks on Dec. 15, 2007. On Wednesday, defense attorney Ari Weitzman said alcohol played a role in the events of Dec. 15, 2007. He asked Tylwalk to sentence Ledford to probation.

He said his client was "extremely intoxicated" that night, and Ledford did not plan for the victim to be sexually assaulted by three men. "This happened spontaneously," Weitzman said.

What began as consensual sex between Ledford and the victim in a bathroom utility room in a barracks escalated into the sexual assault of the victim, the defense attorney said. "This is not the way Mr. Ledford typically conducts himself," Weitzman said. Ledford has served in the military for 11 or 12 years and hopes to spend the rest of his life in the service, the defense attorney said. His guilty plea may jeopardize that, he added.

Ledford enlisted in the military at the age of 17 and has served since then, Weitzman said. He has earned the rank of sergeant, he added. He served 14 months in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 and 2005, the defense attorney said. At the time of their arrest, McMenamin, Ledford and Taggert were scheduled to be deployed to Iraq but were ordered to remain in the United States to face the criminal charges. None was deployed.

When he was arrested, Ledford was a member of Detachment 1, Company A, 628th Aviation Support Battalion, which is based at the Gap.

On Wednesday, Megan Ryland-Tanner, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, said she has been in contact with the military and said she is not sure how Ledford's case will be handled by military authorities. Tanner agreed that alcohol played a role, but said that does not excuse the conduct of the three men.

"These three men engaged in sexual contact with (the victim) without her consent," Tanner said.

The victim said the judgment she used the night of the assault was out of character for her. She had met four men at a Union Township bar and went to the Gap along with two other women. She said she has been undergoing counseling since the sexual assault. "It's something that continues to follow me," she said.

Ledford faced the woman and apologized. "It's something that should have never happened," he said. "I'm truly sorry for that." The judge said the victim had acknowledged she had not shown the best judgment the night of the assault. "But that does not excuse what you did," Tylwalk told Ledford.

In addition to the prison sentence, Ledford was ordered to pay fines of $900.