The wife of one of three U.S. servicemen accused of raping a 12-year-old girl Thursday pleaded before a Japanese court for forgiveness and leniency.
"Please, don't take my husband away from his family," Yolanda Gill, 28, beseeched a three-judge panel hearing the case that has sparked anger at the presence of U.S. bases in Okinawa, where two-thirds of the 47,000 American troops in Japan are housed.Navy Seaman Marcus Gill, 22, of Woodville, Texas, put his head down and cried. Tears streamed down his face before he wiped them away.
"I've never been so hurt in my life," Yolanda Gill, a loan officer at a credit union in Cypress, Calif., said in a low, clear voice. "(But) I love him and I always will love him, for better or worse."
Yolanda Gill apologized to the girl, her family, the residents of Okinawa and the U.S. military, asking them to "forgive my husband for what he has done for his part in this incident."
"The girl was very young and she was innocent, and that's the part that really hurts," she said.
She added that she wants to apologize in person and is trying to raise money with the help of friends and relatives to pay compensation. Defense attorneys have suggested that $5,000 from each defendant might yield lighter sentences.
Gill, Marine Pfc. Kendrick Ledet, 20, of Waycross, Ga., and Marine Pfc. Rodrico Harp, 21, of Griffin, Ga. are charged with rape causing injury, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Gill has acknowledged raping the 12-year-old girl, while Harp and Ledet have admitted they helped plot her abduction but did not rape her.
The testimony at Naha District Court came against a backdrop of conflict and culture clash between three Japanese lawyers and an American attorney involved in the defense.
Lawyer Michael Griffith of New York said he had a "dream set of facts" that would help him get the trial moved off Okinawa because of the "prejudiced atmosphere" on the island.
"We think that the judges should not be subjected to undue pressure to find these men guilty. They have to live here," said Griffith, who represents the families of two defendants.
The Japanese lawyers said the law didn't allow the trial to be moved, and told their U.S. colleague his interference was doing more harm than good.
"We are annoyed by the amount of noise he is making," Yutaka Arakawa, an Okinawan defense lawyer for Ledet, said Wednesday after the four lawyers met.