West Point Sergeant Pleads Guilty to Secretly Taping Female Cadets

Sgt.
First Class Michael McClendon was accused of secretly taping the female cadets, some of whom were undressing in locker rooms. According to The New York Times, he faces other disciplinary procedures along with the sentence:

[McClendon] will be reduced in rank to private before
being thrown out of the Army with a bad-conduct discharge after serving
out his sentence, officials said. Those
punishments were handed down after a general court-martial was convened
at Fort Drum, N.Y., on Wednesday. In accordance with a pretrial
agreement and a guilty plea to one charge with eight specifications of
committing indecent acts, Sergeant McClendon’s confinement for five
years was reduced to 33 months.

Part of McClendon’s job was overseeing the “the health,
welfare and discipline” of cadets at the military academy. According to Army materials cited by The New York Times, the job is to “assist each cadet in balancing and integrating
the requirements of physical, military, academic and moral-ethical
programs.”

More than a dozen women were informed that McClendon had violated their privacy. In some incidents, he taped them in bathrooms or showers.

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