Army captain cries during general's court martial over alleged sex misconduct

ELLEN OZIER/REUTERS

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair is being tried in a court martial over his alleged misconduct with a lower-ranking officer with whom he had an affair.

The court martial of a U.S. Army general began Friday with prosecutors asserting the officer threatened to murder his mistress and her family if she exposed their affair.

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair faces life in prison if convicted in the trial, which opened as sexual misconduct in the U.S. military remains a hot-button issue.

Lt. Col. Robert Steele, the lead prosecutor, told the jury that an overbearing Sinclair coerced the Army captain into a three-year relationship - and warned her to keep her mouth shut about the illicit romance.

'I'll kill you and your family, and I will do it in a way no one will ever know,' Steele quoted Sinclair as telling his subordinate officer.

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The victim is 20 years younger than Sinclair, 51, and alleges that the former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne twice forced her to perform oral sex.

Sinclair pleaded guilty Thursday to improper relationships with two female Army officers and to adultery with the captain, his longtime mistress.

The general also admitted keeping pornography on his laptop in Afghanistan. He's already facing up to 15 years in prison for those violations.

Sinclair's attorneys claim the spurned accuser went after the general when he refused to leave his wife of nearly 30 years.

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Defense attorneys, in their opening statements at Fort Bragg, N.C., read journal entries from the captain - noting that she never wrote a word about fearing Sinclair.

'I'm so in love with him,' read one excerpt. 'I do know that I love him incredibly ... I love him almost unconditionally.'

The trial opened one day after the U.S. Senate blocked a bill sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York to change the way military rapes and other serious crimes are handled.

The Democratic senator proposed stripping military commanders of the power to prosecute the cases, but the 55-45 vote in favor of the legislation fell five votes short of the needed 60.

lmcshane@nydailynews.com