text: An Air Force instructor convicted of raping a female recruit and sexually assaulting several others is due back in court on one of the nation's busiest training bases Saturday for the start of the sentencing phase of his court-martial. 
   
   Air Force Staff Sgt. Luis Walker arrives for the fourth day of his trial at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, Friday, July 20, 2012. Walker is accused of sexually assaulting 10 basic trainees,... (Associated Press) 
   
   Air Force Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, left foreground, arrives for the fourth day of his trial at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, Friday, July 20, 2012. Walker is accused of sexually assaulting... (Associated Press) 
   
   Air Force Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, right, arrives for the fourth day of his trial at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, Friday, July 20, 2012. Walker is accused of sexually assaulting 10 basic... (Associated Press) 
   
   Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, who faced the most serious charges in a sweeping sex scandal involving Lackland Air Force Base instructors, could be sentenced to up to life in prison and dishonorably discharged. A military jury convicted him Friday on all 28 counts he faced, including rape, aggravated sexual contact and multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault. 
   
   Prosecutors say from October 2010 through January 2011, Walker sexually assaulted or had improper sexual or personal contact with at least 10 female recruits. Lackland is where all Air Force recruits go through basic training. 
   
   Walker is among 12 Lackland instructors investigated for sexual misconduct toward at least 31 female trainees, and among the six charged on counts ranging from rape to adultery. 
   
   Several of Walker's alleged victims testified during his court-martial, including one who described how Walker lured her into an office and sexually assaulted her on a bed, ignoring her pleas to stop. The Associated Press is not naming the women because they are alleged sexual assault victims. 
   
   The women told jurors that Walker gained their trust to get them alone in his office or an empty dormitory, where he then forced them into kissing, touching or intercourse. The alleged sexual misconduct among instructors at the base apparently began in 2009, but the first woman didn't come forward until last year. The women who testified against Walker said they didn't tell anybody at first because they feared being booted from the Air Force. 
   
   According to prosecutors, Walker had sexual intercourse with 4 of the 10 female recruits. He was also accused of making flirtatious or sexually suggestive comments, sending inappropriate text messages and sometimes groping his recruits. 
   
   Prosecutors also accused Walker of forcing five recruits to engage in sexual acts with him by threatening their military careers, and they said he intimidated two of the women into lying about his alleged misconduct. 
   
   Meanwhile, the Air Force said Friday that the case against another former training instructor was referred to a general court-martial. 
   
   Staff Sgt. Craig LeBlanc is charged with sexual misconduct, obstructing justice and making a false official statement. He is accused of using his post as a military instructor to sexually assault and pursue a sexual relationship with one female trainee, and have a wrongful sexual relationship with another. No trial date was set. 
   
   One of the other instructors charged in the case, Staff Sgt. Peter Vega-Maldonado, pleaded guilty in June, admitting he had sex with a female trainee in exchange for a sentence of 90 days' confinement. He later acknowledged he had been involved with a total of 10 trainees _ a number previously unknown to investigators. 
   
   Lackland has about 475 instructors for the approximately 35,000 airmen who graduate every year. About one in five is female, pushed through eight weeks of basic training by a group of instructors, 90 percent of whom are men. ||||| The sexual abuse scandal is among the worst to hit the military in over a decade. In 1996, dozens of women at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland accused male supervisors of rape, sexual assault and other offenses in 1996. A few years earlier, more than 80 women were assaulted during several days of drunken revelry at the Tailhook Association convention in Las Vegas, a case that led to the resignation of the Navy secretary and two admirals. 
   
   Air Force officials said more instructors could be charged as a result of the current investigations, with recruits being encouraged to report episodes anonymously through a 24-hour tip line. The two-star general’s review has also been expanded to include three other Air Force training bases. 
   
   “We’re not satisfied that this one unit is all there is,” Maj. Gen. Leonard A. Patrick, commander of the Second Air Force, which oversees basic training, said in an interview. “We want to assure ourselves through a disciplined approach that we’ve caught everything or everyone involved in this kind of behavior.” 
   
   The scandal has been deeply painful for the Air Force. Nine years ago, a survey by the Pentagon’s inspector general found that 12 percent of the women who graduated from the Air Force Academy that year said they had been victims of rape or attempted rape while at the school. The vast majority said they did not report the episodes to the authorities out of fear of being punished. 
   
   That appears to have been the situation in the current cases as well. The first assault allegations were reported by the acquaintance of a recruit and not the recruit herself. And when investigators began interviewing possible victims, almost all initially denied being assaulted. 
   
   With a staff of about 475 instructors, Lackland provides basic training to every Air Force recruit, about 35,000 a year. About one in five of those trainees are women, and about nine in ten of the instructors are men. 
   
   The rigorously hierarchical nature of the military makes it especially conducive to sexual abuse, critics say, and basic training is even more so, with instructors looming as intimidating, all-powerful figures to young recruits. 
   
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   The Pentagon rejects such assertions. But amid growing criticism from advocacy groups and Congress, Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta announced in April new steps to combat sexual assault, including having higher ranking officers handle sexual assault complaints, a change expected to lead to more prosecutions. 
   
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   According to Pentagon data, there were 3,192 reports of sexual assault in the military in 2011, but only 240 went to trial, with 191 convictions. But the Defense Department acknowledges that the crime is vastly underreported, estimating the number of assaults may actually be closer to 19,000 a year. 
   
   During closing arguments in Sergeant Walker’s trial on Friday, the lead prosecutor, Maj. Patricia Gruen, portrayed him as a predator who first intimidated, then befriended recruits before assaulting them. 
   
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   “When you take off the sheep’s outfit and the wolf is released on the flock, he looks for those that stand out, and pounces,” she told the jury. 
   
   But the defense, which called only one witness during the five-day trial, focused on the fact that none of the female recruits complained about Sergeant Walker to the authorities. 
   
   The lead defense lawyer, Joseph Esparza, also noted that the prosecution failed to produce DNA evidence or surveillance video, even though there were cameras in parts of the barracks. 
   
   “We don’t know what happened,” he said. “Everyone changed their stories based on when they were asked and who was asking.” 
   
   The trial was dominated by the graphic and often emotional testimony of female recruits. The New York Times does not typically identify possible victims of sexual assault. 
   
   One woman, identified as Airman 5, testified that Sergeant Walker tried to win her confidence by sympathizing with her after she had been upset by bad news from home. He later began sending suggestive texts to her cellphone before cornering her in a supply closet and forcing her to have sex with him. 
   
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   The woman said she did not report the episode out of fear that Sergeant Walker would “recycle” her in punishment, meaning force her to redo basic training. 
   
   “I was scared, and miserable and hurt,” the woman testified. Her version was corroborated in court by a friend. 
   
   Another witness, identified as Airman 8, said Sergeant Walker called her into his office and pressured her to show her breasts. She mentioned the episode to other recruits, and word got back to Sergeant Walker. 
   
   She testified that he then called her back into his office and warned her: “If you had a problem with it, then you should have come to me, instead of running your mouth. Remember, I’m staff sergeant, you’re a trainee.” 
   
   “I went numb,” the woman testified. “I was scared. What if he punished me, or ruined my career?” ||||| Staff Sgt. Walker found guilty on all charges of sexual misconduct 
   
   
   
   
   
   Photo: John Davenport, San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 2 Caption Close Image 1 of 2 Air Force Staff Sgt. Luis Walker (second from right) and others leave his trial at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland on July 20, 2012, after he was convicted on all counts of illicit sexual contact with 10 women in basic training. Air Force Staff Sgt. Luis Walker (second from right) and others leave his trial at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland on July 20, 2012, after he was convicted on all counts of illicit sexual contact with 10 women ... more Photo: John Davenport, San Antonio Express-News Image 2 of 2 Air Force Staff Sgt. Luis Walker (center) arrives for the fourth day of his trial at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio on July 20, 2012. Air Force Staff Sgt. Luis Walker (center) arrives for the fourth day of his trial at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio on July 20, 2012. Photo: AP Staff Sgt. Walker found guilty on all charges of sexual misconduct 1 / 2 Back to Gallery 
   
   Staff Sgt. Luis A. Walker, the boot camp instructor at the center of the worst Air Force basic training sexual misconduct scandal in history, was found guilty of all counts Friday. 
   
   Standing at attention and flanked by his defense team, Walker stood expressionless as Col. Michael A. Romero, the president of the jury, pronounced him guilty of seven charges and 28 specifications of misconduct. Walker was red-eyed, with tears streaming down his face, as he left the court. 
   
   In a basement room of the 37th Training Wing headquarters building at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, a group of Walker's victims also broke into tears. After hearing the pronouncements of several guilty verdicts, one woman collapsed, and others embraced her and each other on the floor. After the last specification was read, they consoled one another, sobbing, with some hugging. 
   
   “I think you define a victory by a win, and I'm not sure that any of us win when we have a situation like this,” said Col. Polly Kenny, an Air Force lawyer. “I doubt that even the victims feel like it's a victory. I'm sure that they feel vindicated somewhat that they were believed.” 
   
   Walker left the courthouse with his wife and family, perhaps spending his last night as a free man, after the judge, Col. Wesley Moore, ordered a pause in the proceedings. 
   
   He'll be sentenced today. He faces up to 20 years each on six aggravated sexual assault specifications and life for rape. 
   
   The jurors deliberated almost 61/2 hours before filing into the courtroom, all of them frowning. 
   
   The Air Force charged Walker with having illicit relationships with 10 women, all of them in basic training and some in the units that he oversaw. There was no physical evidence in the case, only their testimony, and defense attorney Joseph Esparza tried to pick apart their accounts. 
   
   In his closing argument earlier Friday, he told the jurors that while the number of women the Air Force listed as victims in the case looked bad, the sheer volume of accusers on its own meant nothing. 
   
   “Staff Sgt. Walker is simply not guilty. I know that sounds incredible given the evidence we've heard,” Esparza said. “The fact that you're accused of a number of crimes isn't proof of anything.” 
   
   Prosecutors and the defense each spent just more than an hour making closing arguments. The panel of six men and one woman left the courtroom shortly before 1 p.m. to review the long list of charges and specifications. 
   
   Earlier in the day, the Air Force announced that another trainer would face trial. Staff Sgt. Craig LeBlanc is accused of sexually assaulting a female basic training recruit, wrongly conducting an intimate relationship with a trainee, obstruction of justice and adultery. No trial date was set. 
   
   Tuesday, Staff Sgt. Kwinton Estacio, charged with sexually assaulting a female airman in basic training, violating a no-contact order and obstructing justice, was also ordered to face trial, with no date set. 
   
   Walker's case is the most extensive of a half-dozen so far revealed by the Air Force. 
   
   Armed with a slide presentation, Esparza worked to dissect the witness testimony by highlighting changes and inconsistencies in their stories. He also stressed that prosecutors didn't provide DNA evidence, witnesses to confirm the accounts of the women or Air Force logs and personal phone records. 
   
   The lead prosecutor, Maj. Patricia Gruen, called Walker “the consummate predator,” telling jurors he used the power the Air Force gave him to satisfy his own sexual desires. 
   
   Walker began overseeing flights, as Air Force training units are called, in October 2010. He is accused of developing an illegal relationship with a recruit identified only as Airman 10 on Oct. 25. He was yanked from his training instructor job 13 months ago. 
   
   Prosecutors pointed to a pattern, saying Walker would be nice to the women, acting as if he were a friend, and later hug, kiss and grope them before trying to have sex. The Air Force said four women had intercourse with Walker, who is charged with adultery and rape. 
   
   “He is the wolf in sheep's clothing,” said Gruen, the prosecutor. 
   
   Kenny, the military prosecutor, said the Air Force failed his victims. 
   
   “I think our obligation is to provide a safe, secure training environment and we did not find one for these 10 women, and as a result, we're here today,” she said. “But we're going to do everything we can to ferret out every single allegation and follow it through its conclusion.” 
   
   sigc@express-news.net
target: – Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, an instructor at Lackland Air Force Base, was found guilty yesterday of raping one trainee and sexually assaulting several others, reports AP. Walker faces life in prison and a dishonorable discharge after being found guilty on 28 counts, including adultery, violating regulations, and committing sexual crimes against female trainees, notes the San Antonio Express-News. Thirty-one women have accused Walker and at least 11 other instructors of sexual misconduct over a two-and-a-half year period, which has led to a major policy review across the Air Force. "We're not satisfied that this one unit is all there is," the commander of the Second Air Force, which oversees basic training, tells the New York Times. "We want to assure ourselves through a disciplined approach that we’ve caught everything or everyone involved in this kind of behavior." The Defense Department estimates there may be up to 19,000 sexual assaults a year across the services, although just 3,192 were reported in 2011, with 191 convictions.