The 88th Air Base Wing headquarters is located in Building 10 on Area A, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, May 17, 2022. (Matthew Clouse/U.S. Air Force)
The former installation commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base pleaded guilty Tuesday to willfully disobeying an order from a superior officer and fraternizing with an enlisted member of the Air Force.
Being tried in a court-martial at the headquarters of the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson, where he once served as commander, Col. Christopher Meeker offered guilty pleas to one charge and a specification of a second charge in exchange for a second specification of that second charge — engaging in extramarital sexual conduct — being withdrawn.
Lt. Gen. Donna Shipton, commander of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson, testified during the trial’s sentencing phase that she had ordered Meeker to have no personal or electronic contact with an Air Force staff sergeant who also worked at Wright-Patterson, at Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) headquarters as an aide to Gen. Duke Richardson, AFMC commander.
Shipton described meeting with Meeker after she learned that he had violated that order.
“It was his opinion that (the staff sergeant) was spiraling,” Shipton said. “He felt she would not be here if he hadn’t taken action against the no-contact order.”
Under questioning by military Judge Col. Matthew Stoffel, Meeker said that, after the staff sergeant had been hospitalized for treatment of her mental health, she went to the back door of Meeker’s residence, then on Wright-Patterson.
“She felt I was her last resort,” Meeker told the judge.
But he also acknowledged “I willfully disobeyed the order through a lack of discipline and selfishly for my own personal happiness.”
He described meeting her at a public “food hall” in the Dayton area.
“I violated fraternization rules in a public setting to the extent that everybody at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base now knows about it,” Meeker said.
Meeker, an Air Force Academy graduate and a career civil engineer, faced a maximum sentence of up to seven years, among other penalties. He now lives off base and has been separated from his wife.
The violations of the no-contact order, including more than two instances of sexual relations with the enlisted member, happened after Shipton had fired Meeker from command of the 88th Air Base Wing in December 2023.
But a plea agreement worked out with military prosecutors recommended that Meeker be sentenced to no more than a term of 21 days, for both a charge and a specification of another charge, to be served concurrently. In other words, the colonel would serve no more than 21 days total.
He could also face dismissal from the service and forfeiture of pay.
Stoffel has accepted both the guilty pleas and the plea agreement. As of noon Tuesday, sentencing had not yet occurred.
Meeker assumed command of the the 88th Air Base Wing in July 2022. Since the inception of the 88th in October 1994, no prior commander of the wing had been relieved of command.
Col. Dustin Richards assumed command of the wing about a year ago.
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