NY Soldier Acquitted of Murder in Officers' Deaths

A soldier was acquitted of murder Thursday in the 2005 bombing deaths of two superiors in Iraq, triggering loud outbursts and gasps from the slain officers' families.

Alberto B. Martinez headshot, US Army soldier charged in the deaths of two of his commaders; Phillip Esposito and Louis E. Allen, at Forward Operating Base Danger, near Tikrit, Iraq,

(CBS6/WRGB Albany/AP Photo)

A military jury found Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez not guilty on two counts of premedidated murder in the deaths of Capt. Phillip Esposito of Suffern, N.Y., and 1st Lt. Louis Allen, of Milford, Pa. Both officers were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in a window of their room at a U.S. military base in Iraq in June 2005.

"He slaughtered our husbands and that's it?" yelled Allen's widow, Barbara Allen, moments after the verdict was read. Someone else shouted out that Martinez was a "murdering son of a bitch" before the judge quickly ordered the courtroom to be cleared.

The 14-member jury spent two days deliberating following a six-week trial at Fort Bragg, during which Martinez chose not to testify. The New York Army National Guard soldier could have faced the death penalty if he had been convicted.

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Martinez, 41, of Troy, N.Y., was the first soldier from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to have been accused of killing a direct superior, a crime known as "fragging" during the Vietnam war. All three were members of the 42nd Infantry Division.

Witnesses had testified that Esposito and Martinez were at odds because the officer thought Martinez was lax in his operation of the unit's supply room.

Before reaching a verdict, military jurors spent several hours Thursday reviewing the recorded testimony of trial witnesses, including a sergeant who said she had delivered explosives to the supply room Martinez oversaw shortly before the bombing.

Prosecution witness Staff Sgt. Amy Harlan said she delivered ammunition and Claymore mines to Martinez's supply room about a month before the fatal bombing. Harlan said she neither received nor requested a receipt documenting who took the equipment, a usual military practice.

Sgt. 1st Class Ashvin Thimmaiah's testimony also was reviewed. He said Esposito asked him for a list of "potential candidates to take over the supply room" the day before he was killed.