Sergeant Accused of 12 Sexual Assaults

Army Staff Sgt. Angel M. Sanchez appeared at a pretrial hearing Wednesday after he was accused of assaulting several female soldiers since 2011, including one while deployed to Afghanistan. The rest of the alleged assaults took place while he served as a drill sergeant at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri. The news comes as the Pentagon acknowledged this month that the problem is more widespread than commanders realized, after it received thousands of reports of sexual assault this year. According to prosecutors, Sanchez instilled in one woman a "fear that she would be kicked out of the U.S. Army if she did not engage in sexual acts” with him. In another, he allegedly grabbed a female soldier by her hair and forced her to perform oral sex in a bathroom.