Cocaine use lands officer second dismissal

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KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) --  A conviction for wrongfully using a controlled substance for the second time in eight months earned an officer here a second dismissal from the Air Force, 12 months confinement and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

Second Lt. Bryce Terpstra was convicted of cocaine use after a required urinalysis specimen he submitted tested positive for cocaine. He was inprocessing for confinement from an earlier conviction, said Maj. Tiffany Dawson, military justice chief here.

Lieutenant Terpstra was first convicted June 9 in a general court-martial for using methamphetamine once before leaving Colorado Springs for Kirtland, Major Dawson said. He had recently graduated from the Air Force Academy and had been on station less than two weeks when he tested positive for methamphetamine.

As a result of that court-martial, he was sentenced to four months confinement and a dismissal. Dismissal of an officer is the officer equivalent of a dishonorable discharge.

As part of the inprocessing procedures for that confinement, Lieutenant Terpstra was required to provide a urinalysis specimen June 10, the major said. While he was in confinement at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Miramar, Calif., government officials learned that Lieutenant Terpstra's confinement urinalysis tested positive for cocaine.

The lieutenant was then charged with wrongful use of cocaine. He pleaded guilty to the charge in February and elected to be tried by a military judge alone.

During his guilty plea, Lieutenant Terpstra admitted to snorting cocaine at a party in the Albuquerque area the weekend before his first court-martial, Major Dawson said. During his unsworn statement, Lieutenant Terpstra said he had made poor decisions in the past but had learned from these mistakes while he was in confinement.

During the sentencing portion of the trial, defense lawyers asked the military judge, Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, to forego lengthy confinement based on the lieutenant's efforts to rehabilitate himself, Major Dawson said. But the prosecution focused on Lieutenant Terpstra's open defiance of the law and Air Force standards.

"Lieutenant Terpstra's use of cocaine the weekend before his first court-martial demonstrated an open defiance of the law and basic standards,” said Capt. Terry McCollom, assistant trial counsel. “He will spend the next 12 months re-educating himself on respect for the law and the wrongfulness of using illegal drugs. This sentence shows the value that the military places on respect for the law and its intolerance for those that openly defy it." (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)