AF Staff Sergeant Gets 3 Years on Sex Charges

A staff sergeant at Beale Air Force Base was sentenced Friday to three years' confinement after being found guilty of wrongful sexual contact and harassment involving female personnel during incidents in Iraq and Yuba County, Calif.

Sgt. Todd J. Barlow also received a dishonorable discharge in the sentence handed down by Lt. Col. Jeffrey Ferguson, the military judge who presided over the court-martial at Beale.

Barlow was found guilty of eight charges that include sexual contact on Aug. 27, 2010, in a car parked across from the Walmart in Linda and on Nov. 30, 2007, at Camp Bucca, Iraq.

A second witness testified about the 2007 incident in Iraq that she said involved her repeatedly telling Barlow "no" when he wanted her to perform oral sex. She said Barlow had told her he would leave her alone forever if she agreed to the sex act. The woman said she threw up after running out of the tower in Iraq at a U.S. military site where terrorists were detained.

Capt. Neal Frazier, the Air Force's trial counsel, argued Thursday that the defense suggested Barlow faced some sort of a female conspiracy where women got together and cooked up the accusations against the staff sergeant.

"Poor Sgt. Barlow" and all these young females throwing themselves at him sexually and then accusing him of assault, Frazier said.

"It's not what the evidence shows," Frazier said.