An airman was sentenced to nearly six months of confinement and given a bad conduct discharge for the use and distribution of an illegal drug.
Airman 1st Class Devante King, 23, a member of the 721st Aerial Port Squadron at Ramstein Air Base since 2019, was sentenced Monday by a court-martial for the repeated use and distribution of LSD.
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Lt. Col. Charles Warren, a military judge, sentenced King to up to 171 days of confinement for four charges: possession, introducing it to a military facility, distributing LSD, and wrongfully using LSD. The sentences will run concurrently.
“You will serve 171 days, which, if you do the math, puts you out on Dec. 1,” Warren said.
King asked the judge “to show [him] mercy” because his partner is expecting their first child in early December.
He had purchased about $60 worth of LSD from a friend while he was in Florida shortly before he was assigned to Germany in February 2019, King testified, adding that he brought about 10 tabs of the drug, which were wrapped in foil.
King had taken the drug four or five times between that February and the following December while he was at Ramstein, he said.
He had arranged to sell two tablets of LSD to another airman for $18, but that fellow officer turned out to be an informant.
King should be given the maximum sentence allowed under the plea agreement, which would include a yearlong confinement, reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay, and a dishonorable discharge, prosecutors argued, referencing text messages from King that showed he planned to make money dealing drugs while he was in the Air Force.
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“He is someone who talks about honor but chose to use the Air Force as a means to an end,” Capt. Ayana Clark said in sentencing arguments.
King acknowledged that he had “stumbled off the path” and is determined to show that “my life is not a failure.”
