Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals

United States v. Marrero

Last year, news broke of a significant incident involving the unauthorized purchase and use of a Starlink wifi setup aboard a Navy ship.

Andrew Dyer, Heinous and egregious conduct among one ship's chiefs in illegal Wi-Fi scheme, investigation says. KBPS 65, 6 September 2024.

​In October 2024,

The Navy said Friday it has punished just one additional chief petty officer -- out of 18 sent to Captain's Mast -- and an officer from the USS Manchester more than a year after it caught a group of chief petty officers running an illicit Wi-Fi network aboard the ship.
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The acknowledgment from the Navy, which comes after the ship's command master chief was sent to a special court-martial, suggests the majority of the sailors involved avoided significant punishments, despite concern over the incident. The commander of the Manchester's squadron, Capt. Douglas Meagher, said in the investigation results that he had "never seen such heinous and egregious conduct by [a] command master chief and an entire CPO Mess."
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Meagher ordered more than a dozen chief petty officers and one officer to receive non-judicial punishments for their role in the Wi-Fi network. Cmdr. Cindy Fields, a spokeswoman for the commander of Naval Surface Forces, confirmed to Military.com in a statement Friday that 18 chiefs and senior chiefs and one officer did, in fact, go to Captain's Mast.

Konstantin Toropin, Navy Confirms Just One More Chief, Officer Punished for Illicit Wi-Fi Network on Warship. Military.com 18 October 2024.

With that background, Appellant Marrero's legal issue follows because she

​was sentenced to reduction of one grade. She now argues that her sentence was inappropriately disparate from the punishment of her eighteen co-actors because they received administrative punishment and did not lose rank. We are unconvinced.
. . .
We review sentence appropriateness de novo. Appellant must show that her case was “closely related” to that of her co-actors and that her sentence was “highly disparate.” If Appellant succeeds, the Government must show that there is a rational basis for the disparity.

Should this case go to CAAF, is there an opportunity to address the following point raised by NMCCA in n.14?

​The Court need not decide today whether a conviction in a judicial proceeding is a prerequisite for conducting the “closely related” analysis under Sothen. See United States v. Behunin, 83 M.J. 158, 161–62 (C.A.A.F. 2023) (suggesting only sentences adjudged at court-martial are to be used to determine if a particular sentence is disparate); United States v. Swisher, 85 M.J. 1 (C.A.A.F. 2024) (holding a “closely related” analysis is required where the co-actor was convicted in civilian criminal judicial proceeding); see also United States v. Taper, No. 202400014, 2025 CCA LEXIS 71, *9–10 (N-M. Ct. Crim. App. Feb. 25, 2025) (unpublished) (when comparing Seaman Taper’s sentence to administrative punishment of a co-actor the court found that there was “no sentence to compare”).

Like NMCCA, CAAF might avoid addressing the footnoted question because it doesn't matter, similar to situations where an appellate court can skip the legal issues and go to the bottom line of 'it doesn't matter because there is no prejudice anyway,' or words to that effect. Thus a potential rev. denied?

Appellant led the effort to install the unauthorized Wi-Fi and—what truly separates her misconduct from that of her co-actors—she abused her rank, position, and trust by committing numerous crimes to conceal the group’s actions and prolong the scheme’s existence. The impact of Appellant’s misconduct was “[h]uge,” as it negatively affected both the operational effectiveness of the ship and the morale of the crew. The ship was “left pier-side in Guam for the last 2 months of deployment when [it] could have been operational. . . .” Appellant abused her rank and her special position of trust with the commanding officer to conceal her misconduct and now contends that the loss of rank was too severe of a consequence by comparison.