HONOLULU (AP) — An Army medic charged with conspiring with his lover to kill his wife in Hawaii will be court-martialed for child pornography and prostitution charges that surfaced while investigating the killing.
HONOLULU (AP) — An Army medic charged with conspiring with his lover to kill his wife in Hawaii will be court-martialed for child pornography and prostitution charges that surfaced while investigating the killing.
Sgt. Michael Walker’s general court-martial is set for June 20 and June 21 at Wheeler Army Airfield on Oahu, said Jim Guzior, spokesman for Tripler Army Medical Center, where Walker has been assigned since 2013. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for next week.
Walker has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in civilian court in the killing of Catherine Walker, who was found stabbed to death in November 2014 in the military housing the couple shared in Honolulu.
Army prosecutors revealed new allegations during a military judicial hearing in March, where they said Michael Walker is accused of possessing and viewing child pornography and receiving money in exchange for sex with men.
His Army defense attorneys couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Tuesday. “Sgt. Walker is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” Guzior said.
Walker allegedly posted on Craigslist soliciting three men to have sex in exchange for his receiving money, the Army said.
Child pornography video and photos were found on Walker’s laptop during a November 2014 search, with additional images and video found during an April 2015 search, the Army said.
In December, Ailsa Jackson pleaded guilty to murder and described in a Honolulu federal courtroom how she stabbed Catherine Walker and then waited a half-hour to make sure she was dead.
After meeting through an online dating site in September 2014, Walker told Jackson he was married and that his “deepest desire” was to have his wife gone, but he couldn’t divorce her, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Brady said during Jackson’s plea hearing. The two then discussed Jackson carrying out the killing while Walker was at work so that he would have an alibi, Brady said.
Walker had an affair with Jackson, but he loves his wife and didn’t want her killed, his attorney in the civilian case, Birney Bervar, said after Jackson pleaded guilty. The couple, married for more than 11 years and originally from upstate New York, were about to undergo in-vitro fertilization after about a decade of trying to have a baby, he said.
Bervar declined to comment on the court-martial, saying those charges aren’t part of the civilian case.