Navy officer pleads guilty to lesser charge of assault
Published 1:30 am Friday, May 24, 2019
A Navy flight officer who was assigned to a squadron at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island will no longer face attempted murder charges related to a 2017 assault in Florida, Navy News reported.
Lt. Cmdr. Jason Scott Doyle initially faces charges that including attempted murder for repeatedly strangling his former fiancee and telling her he was going to kill her, the story states.
Instead, Doyle pleaded guilty in military court to a lesser aggravated assault charge and will be dismissed from the Navy.
According to a Military.com story, Doyle threw the woman on a couch and choked her during an argument over the status of their relationship. He forced his way into a bathroom after she fled and choked her, then choked her again on the patio, the report alleges.
Deputies who responded to the woman’s 911 call found Doyle in the yard with a loaded firearm and he told them he intended to use in on himself. He allegedly confessed to the allegations.
Doyle pleaded guilty to the lesser charge as part of a plea bargain; he was sentenced to nine months confinement, a reprimand and dismissal from the Navy, the Navy News reported.
Doyle had been stationed with Patrol Squadron 30 in Jacksonville, Fla. from 2015 to 2017, but was assigned to Patrol Squadron 47 at NAS Whidbey at the time of the incident.
