Stars & Stripes

9 March 1996

By Doyle Tillman

Kaiserslautern bureau

Kaiserslautern, Germany - An Army Staff Sergeant accused of buying surplus government vehicles and illegaly shipping them to the States at taxpayers' expense has been acquitted of all charges.

"I thank God 100 percent for looking out for me and my family," Staff Sgt. Ronald P. Tash, 37, said Thursday evening following the special court-martial. "I was finally believed. The jury took the evidence, the demeanor of the witnesses and the cross-examination of my lawyer to bring the truth into the light."

The Army transportation squad leader, who has been in uniform 17 years, had been charged with conspiracy, larceny by false pretenses and soliciting false statements. Prosecutors contended that Tash had plotted with at least five other soldiers in his 89th Transportation Company to ship cars he had purchased at Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office sales to the States for resale.

The six-member Army jury of enlisted and commissioned soldiers took slightly more than an hour to reach its verdicts.

Tash, who last year was cleared at an Article 15 hearing of similar charges, said Thursday that he feared the Army might come after him a third time. He said that earlier in the week prosecutor Capt. Darrel Vandeveld and another soldier read to him new government charges. However, a spokeswoman for the 21st Theater Army Area Command's criminal law division said Friday that the agency does not plan further prosecution.

Prosecutors Maj. Dwight Warren and Vandeveld argued that Tash stole more than $3,500 in shipping services from the government when four of the soldiers shipped vehicles back to the U.S.

Additional charges alleged that Tash told each of the junior soldiers what to say when interviewed by Criminal Investigation Command (CID) agents.

DAVID COURT, Tash's civilian attorney, argued that Tash's actions were legal. At worst, he said, Tash had taken advantage of loopholes in the regulations. Tash was accused of paying Pfc. Patrick Green and Specs. Christopher Richardson, Taron Carlton and Gary Henry $250 each to transfer ownership of Tash's vehicles to themselves and to obtain a power of attorney for use by Tash or his designee when the vehicle arrived in the United States.

The four soldiers, all afforded immunity from prosecution, testified that Tash and former Spec. William Pratt handled the paperwork to get the vehicles shipped. Once the vehicles arrived in the United States, they were to be sold. Pratt was chaptered out of the Army in 1995 for other misconduct, officials said.

Sgt. Bennie M. Pake, who also testified with a promise of immunity from prosecution, said that he had purchased a Ford truck from Tash and that he still owed him $1500 of the $2000 purchase price. Pake also criticized the conduct of Army CID agents who interviewed him.

"CID at Fort Eustis (Va.) was very aggressive ... They basically called me a liar," Pake testified, lending some backing to defense assertions the CID had pressured the young soldiers to give damaging statements against Tash.

Pake said that when he refused to make the statements CID wanted, agents threatened that he "would buy the farm." Pake said he took the threats seriously and sought legal counsel. Tash, formerly a motor vehicle squad leader and supervisor, said he was not sure of his duty status. Since November, he has worked as "a towel boy" at the Kleber Casern gym.