Marine Officer Gets 2-Year Sentence
PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative file photo from a 2021 Marine Corps award ceremony. The Marine intelligence warrant officer featured in this story was later convicted of domestic violence and child endangerment and sentenced to two years in confinement under a plea agreement that barred dismissal and reduction in rank.
A Marine Corps intelligence warrant officer convicted of domestic violence and child endangerment has been sentenced to two years in confinement under a plea agreement that prevented the military judge from dismissing him from the service or reducing his rank.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Benjamin G. Dux was sentenced Aug. 5 following a general court martial in Okinawa, Japan.
Newly available military court records show Dux pleaded guilty to two domestic violence offenses under Article 128b of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and one child endangerment offense under Article 119b. The military judge found him guilty of all three offenses.
One of the domestic violence convictions involved strangulation of his spouse.
Military prosecutors had accused Dux of strangling her with his hands during an incident on Jan. 18, 2026.
The original charge sheet also contained serious allegations involving a child younger than 16.
Prosecutors alleged that Dux violently assaulted the child, causing bald patches on the child's scalp and one or more fractured bones. A separate child endangerment allegation accused him of throwing burning wood onto a tent while the child was inside.
Those details require an important distinction.
The fractures and scalp injuries appeared in the original charging documents. The newly reported final findings identify convictions for two domestic violence offenses and child endangerment, but the available reporting does not establish that every factual allegation in the original charge sheet became part of Dux's guilty plea.
For that reason, those injuries should remain described as allegations from the original prosecution rather than rewritten as independently established facts.
The military judge sentenced Dux to 24 months in confinement for each of the two domestic violence offenses and six months for child endangerment.
Those sentences are being served concurrently, meaning his total confinement is 24 months rather than adding the individual terms together.
Dux also received 198 days of credit for time already spent in pretrial confinement.
That meant more than six months of his confinement had already been credited when the sentence was handed down.
But confinement was essentially the extent of the punishment the judge was permitted to impose under the agreement.
According to the statement of trial results, Dux's plea agreement provided that no dismissal could be adjudged.
It also prohibited a reduction in rank, forfeiture of pay, or a fine.
The agreement additionally capped his confinement at 24 months.
The publicly available record does not explain why prosecutors agreed to those restrictions.
The absence of a dismissal in the court martial sentence also should not be interpreted as proof that Dux can never face a later administrative personnel action. The newly available court records describe the criminal sentence and plea agreement, not every possible personnel decision that could follow the case.
Dux was serving as a chief warrant officer 2 assigned to 3rd Intelligence Battalion, III Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group when the case arose. Before becoming a warrant officer, he served as a counterintelligence and human intelligence specialist.
His earlier Marine Corps career included combat service in Afghanistan.
As a staff sergeant, Dux received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat C device for meritorious service under combat conditions while supporting Operation Freedom's Sentinel and the Resolute Support Mission.
The Marine Corps selected Dux for its enlisted to warrant officer program in 2022. An official Marine Corps selection announcement lists Benjamin G. Dux for military occupational specialty 0210.
The newly reported court records also indicate that the domestic violence convictions trigger a federal prohibition on Dux possessing firearms.
As of the latest available reporting, the case had not been fully closed and no appeal had been filed.
(Source: OAF Nation)
