Retired Army General Demoted, Convicted for Sexually Assaulting His Daughter Since She Was 3
Outside of a U.S. Federal court during the arraignment of Tairod Pugh, a former U.S. Air Force mechanic accused of attempting to join the terrorist organization ISIS, on March 18, 2015 in New York City. Pugh, 47 plead not guilty to charges of trying to enter Syria to join ISIS. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Retired Army general James Grazioplene has been demoted in rank and was also charged with rape after his daughter spoke about the years of abuse she experienced at the hands of her father.

Pentagon spokesperson Lisa Lawrence said Monday, June 7, that the Secretary of Defense had changed the retired grade of then-major general to second lieutenant after determining that the said rank was the highest grade in which he served on active duty satisfactorily, according to a Law and Crime report.

Lawrence noted that Second Lieutenant Grazioplene, 71, would have any benefits or privileges authorized for retired officers in the rank of second lieutenant.

James Grazioplene started his military career with a commission at that same rank out of West Point in 1971. He then rose to two-star general before retiring in 2005.

Retired Army General Sexually Assaulted His Daughter

James Grazioplene's daughter, Jennifer Elmore, had claimed that through her entire childhood and at different posts both abroad and the United States, her father had raped and molested her, Army Times reported.

The allegations were raised within the family in the years after she left home in the late 1980s. However, it came to the attention of military officials after she reported the conduct to the Army CID agents at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in 2015.

On Aug. 26, 2017, she confronted her father in a military courtroom during his Article 32 preliminary hearing. She outlined the decades of abuse she experienced.

Jennifer Elmore detailed one experience when she was three years old when her father had led her to the basement of her grandmother's house. She said that her father had placed her on a washing machine and pleasured himself while molesting her.

She further noted that when she was eight, her father had bought her a piano and insisted on taking her to piano lessons. According to Jennifer Elmore, it was just to park and take whatever sick pleasures he wanted to do with her.

Elmore also said her father also regularly insisted on bathing her. She added that it took her until college to be able to use a bar of soap.

According to another Army Times report, military prosecutors alleged that the rapes took place at or near the suspect's duty stations while the family lived at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Other places where the abuse had happened were in Bindlach and Amberg, Germany; Woodbridge, Virginia; and Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Retired Army General Faces Charges

Defense attorneys had claimed that Jennifer Elmore filled in memories with false claims of rape, adding that the inconsistent statements she had made to authorities over the years are evidence of her being influenced by "psychobabble," and more than a decade of abuse therapy.

The Army had charged James Grazioplene with six counts of violating Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 2017 for the rape of a minor between 1983 and 1989.

A Prince William County grand jury had indicted him in late 2018 after the military court had protected the confirmed abuser. The retired Army general was arrested by Virginia authorities in December 2018 and charged with rape, incest, and aggravated sexual battery.

James Grazioplene has pleaded guilty to one charge of sexual battery while in uniform last July in a deal that saw the remaining charges dismissed.

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