2 Women Testify As Court-Martial Opens Fairchild Sergeant’s Former Girlfriends Describe Alleged Assaults

An Air Force security policeman once threatened to beat his live-in girlfriend to death because he thought she was cheating on him, the woman told a military jury Monday.

Master Sgt. Napolean Bailey went from charming and gentle to violent and possessive over the course of a two-year relationship, said the 28-year-old woman, also an Air Force security officer.

“I was petrified of him,” she said after describing an incident in which Bailey allegedly had tried choking her with her own nightstick.

In other testimony, a north Spokane woman described how Bailey allegedly had tried to run over her with his pickup truck during an argument, broke into her home and sodomized her.

“I screamed at him to stop,” the woman said, struggling to maintain her composure while describing the rape.

The two women testified during the opening day of the court-martial at Fairchild Air Force Base. Bailey faces 17 charges, including rape, sodomy, assault, kidnapping and obstruction of justice. The crimes allegedly occurred over a four-year period involving three women.

The 39-year-old career military man has denied all charges.

“They’re going to try to appeal to your very strong emotions,” Capt. Beth Townsend, one of Bailey’s defense attorneys, told jurors in her opening statement. “This case is not about an animal. It is not about an abuser.

“These women are adults and they made adult choices.”

The court-martial moved quickly Monday, with a panel of eight jurors - four officers and four senior noncommissioned officers - selected.

Air Force officials initially had assigned a total of 12 men and women to the panel, but four were excused after challenges by prosecutors and defense attorneys.

Challenges from the defense removed the panel’s two African-Americans, one of them the only female juror.

One was excused because, as a paymaster, he had knowledge of Bailey’s pay problems while the sergeant was in confinement. The other was removed by the defense’s sole peremptory challenge.

Bailey is African-American, and all of his alleged victims are white. Prosecutors protested the woman’s removal and demanded that defense attorneys state a reason other than race that would cause them to remove her.

“She’s a squadron commander with a reputation as a stern disciplinarian,” said Capt. Ken Theurer, a defense attorney.

Although Col. Lee Pope, the presiding judge, expressed concerns that the black jurors were being excused, he said the defense was acting within its rights in removing them.

At least two-thirds of the jury must vote to convict Bailey on each count or he will be found innocent of that charge.

The Air Force security policewoman said she had met Bailey in early 1992. When she began dating him, he was “just overwhelmingly charming.”

After they had moved in together, she said, Bailey isolated her from her friends and began controlling her life.

“I feel like I became his personal servant,” she said. “It was a very gradual thing. My self-esteem was gone.”

One night, she said, Bailey accused her of having an affair with a man she didn’t even know. She demonstrated in court how Bailey allegedly had stood her against a wall and put a nightstick to her throat.

“How did you feel?” Maj. Claire Matecko, a prosecutor, asked.

“Scared to death,” the woman replied, crying softly after she returned to the witness box.

She never reported the alleged assaults to police or her commanding officer but did tell her unit’s first sergeant. Bailey agreed at that point to get counseling, she said.

Despite her fears, the woman did return to live with Bailey. When she was transferred to South Korea, the two talked of marriage.

But they ended their relationship after she received a call from someone who told her Bailey was having an affair. She later married and now is stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

The north Spokane woman said she had a relationship with Bailey in late 1994 and 1995 that grew increasingly violent.

At one point, she filed a rape complaint with the Office of Special Investigations, a military law enforcement agency. But three days later, she wrote a statement recanting her complaint.

“Why did you do that?” Matecko asked.

“Because he told me to,” the woman said. “I didn’t feel like there was anything that could protect me.”

, DataTimes