A federal judge has sentenced Shawana Topekia Pierce, the former Fort Benning civilian employee who pleaded guilty in July of burning down the post’s historic Judge Advocate General building, to 7 years in prison. She was also ordered to pay $7.5 million in restitution.
Judge Clay Land, U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Georgia, made his decision Tuesday morning following about 90 minutes of testimony and discussion.
Pierce, 31, who had worked at JAG before being dismissed during an investigation into another matter, faced five to 20 years in prison.
Sentence
Five years was the minimum mandatory sentence, based on Pierce’s criminal history and her decision to admit to setting the fire on Feb. 6.
But in a motion filed Oct. 9, the government asked Land to consider adding to that minimum sentence based on its argument that “Pierce’s actions have had a dramatic and negative impact on the ability of JAG to perform its duties.”
Land accepted the government’s motion and added two years, plus three years of supervised release.
“The guideline range of (five years) doesn’t capture the seriousness of the crime,” Land said.
Restitution
Pierce was also ordered to pay $7.5 million in restitution — the estimated cost of cleaning up and disposing of the debris left over from the fire, relocating the functions and occupants of JAG from 7021 Ingersoll Street to three other sites on Fort Benning and replacing the more than 18,000-square-foot building.
William Holloway, chief of Fort Benning’s master planning division, testified during Tuesday’s sentencing that it cost the government more than $951,000 to convert the second floor of Building 128 — formerly the Officer’s Club — into usable office space for JAG operations. He also said that approximately $341,000 in government funds went toward demolition and cleanup on Ingersoll Street.
Land asked Holloway if there were plans to build a new JAG office. Holloway said that they were seeking to build an estimated $9.4 million, 22,000-square-foot facility that could accommodate the post’s growing needs and population.
The cost of rebuilding the office as it was, would be approximately $6.3 million.
‘I’m sorry’
When given the opportunity to address the court toward the end of the hearing, Pierce apologized for her actions. “I can’t replace what happened. I’m very sorry,” she said. “What I did, no excuse what-so-ever.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Flanagan said in February Pierce was a suspect in a theft case and that files about her were in the office. Flanagan also said Pierce bought gas containers from Walmart some five hours before the fire destroyed the building. A container with suspected dried blood was found in a nearby yard after the fire. That blood matched a DNA swab taken from Pierce, Flanagan said.
Investigators with Fort Benning’s Criminal Investigation Command, military police personnel and agents with the National Response Team from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives worked the case jointly, conducting interviews, reconstructing the fire and sifting through charred piles of debris in hopes of discovering how the fire began. Pierce was in custody within five days of the blaze being set, said ATF spokesman Marc S. Jackson.
“This was an attack on an institution of justice, having a significant community impact,” Special Agent in Charge Gregory Gant of ATF’s Atlanta Field Division said in a press release. “ATF, Army CID, and military police investigators brought to bear every available asset in our collective effort to investigate the fire and solve this crime. This investigation is a textbook example of agencies working together to solve a complex case in very short order.”
Emotional reaction
Many of the government employees who worked in the JAG building lost personal items and memorabilia in the fire, many of them irreplaceable. It’s a fact that still weighs heavy on the hearts of JAG employees Veronica Lewis, Richard Gordon and Ann Norfolk, all of whom were called upon in court Tuesday to share their stories about Building Five.
Lewis said it was like a second home to her and her co-workers, a second family. Now she said she works in an unfamiliar office miles away from those co-workers with whom she spent years building relationships.
Gordon became emotional when he spoke about the family photos that were consumed in the blaze. One picture, taken years ago when Gordon was stationed in Germany, was of his wife when she was pregnant with the couple’s first child. Another was of his daughter in mid-celebration following a softball win.
Norfolk said of the building: “It was an old, drafty, wonderful place.”
The JAG building was built almost a century ago and was the second oldest building on Fort Benning. Its courtroom had seen many trials, including the court-martial of Lt. William Calley, who was convicted in 1971 of killing 22 civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai in 1968.
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