On this day, April 29, in 1997, Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of 18 counts of rape of trainees in a case that sent shock waves through the U.S. Army.
The scandal, which involved Simpson and other soldiers at the Aberdeen training base 30 miles north of Baltimore, prompted a review over whether men and women should train together.
Prosecutors portrayed the lean, 6-foot-4-inch sergeant as a predator who abused his power to rape, sodomize and harass the most vulnerable women under his command.
Simpson was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
— Scott McCabe
