Rtd. Army Major General Demoted After Conviction For Sexual Abuse Of Daughter

A retired Army major general has been demoted to the rank of second lieutenant, a year after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his daughter.

"The Secretary of Defense changed the retired grade of then-Major General James J. Grazioplene, United States Army Retired, to second lieutenant after determining that second lieutenant was the highest grade in which he served on active duty satisfactorily," Pentagon spokeswoman Lisa Lawrence told Army Times in an email Monday.

"This action may not be appealed," she wrote. But, Grazioplene will maintain any benefits or privileges authorized for retired officers in the grade of the second lieutenant.

It was in 2015 that Grazioplene's daughter Jennifer Elmore reported the rape and abuse to the Army CID agents at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

An investigation was carried out by the military and in 2017, court-martial proceedings were initiated, though the allegations were three decades old.

The Army charged him with six counts of violating Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice over the rape of a minor between 1983 and 1989.

During the military hearing, Elmore had detailed the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. "At 3, he led me to the dark, dirty basement of my grandmother’s house and put me on the washing machine and pleasured himself while molesting me," she said in a victim impact statement, as reported by Law and Crime.

"At 8, he bought me a piano and insisted on taking me to piano lessons, all so he could park and take whatever sick pleasures that he so desired. The same horrors occurring as he regularly insisted on bathing me. It took me until college to be able to use a bar of soap."

But the charges were dismissed. A ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in another case effectively limited the statute of limitations in Grazioplene’s case to five years.

However, Prince William County grand jury indicted him in late 2018 as the prosecutors in Virginia were not bound by the statute of limitations for crimes that allegedly occurred while Grazioplene and his family were stationed in the state.

He was arrested in 2018 and charged with rape, incest and aggravated sexual battery. He pleaded guilty to a single count of sexual battery and in return, all the other charges were dismissed. In 2020, Grazioplene was given time served with a suspended sentence of 20 years.