http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13576529/NEW LONDON, Conn. — A military jury sentenced a U.S. Coast Guard cadet to prison and kicked him out of the service Wednesday for extorting a classmate for sexual favors.
Cadet Webster M. Smith, the first student court-martialed in the academy’s 130-year history, received a six-month sentence in a military prison.
He was acquitted of rape but faced up to five years and seven months for extortion, sodomy, indecent assault and other charges.
Defense attorneys for Smith, 23, asked the jury to spare him jail time, saying the stigma of his conviction will follow him forever. He will not graduate from the Coast Guard Academy and must register as a sex offender in Texas.
“I am ashamed to have been the first cadet to have been court-martialed, but I am proud of my decision to fight for my career and freedom,” Smith told the jury.
