Jeremy Compton, former command sergeant major of the 46th Engineer Battalion at Fort Polk, La., was sentenced June 1, 2023, to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to distributing child pornography, adultery and sharing explicit photographs of himself while in uniform. (U.S. Army)
AUSTIN, Texas — A Fort Polk command sergeant major will spend 20 months in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to distributing child pornography, adultery and sharing explicit photographs of himself while in uniform, Army officials at the Louisiana base said.
Jeremy Compton, 45, served as the command sergeant major of the 46th Engineer Battalion at Fort Polk for two years before his arraignment on six counts of sexual misconduct Nov. 8. He pleaded guilty to all the charges before military judge Lt. Col. Scott Z. Hughes in the 3rd Judicial District.
In addition to nearly two years in prison, Compton will be reduced in rank to E-1 and dishonorably discharged from the service, said Shelby Waryas, spokeswoman for Fort Polk. Compton also will have to register as a sex offender, she said.
“The sentence was consistent with the terms of the plea agreement, which limited confinement to between 12 and 36 months and which mandated a dishonorable discharge,” Waryas said.
Compton’s charge sheet briefly described the accusations against him. He was accused of owning and distributing digital images of a minor, or what appears to be a minor, engaging in sexually explicit acts. Two of the charges are for incidents that occurred between Aug. 23, 2020, and Sept. 8, 2020, and two charges occurred between April 20, 2021, and June 21, 2021.
Compton, who is married, also was accused of having sex with someone who was not his spouse in Little Rock, Ark., on or about May 1, 2021, according to the charge sheet. The final charge against Compton alleged he distributed images of himself dressed in his military uniform exposing himself at least once between April 2, 2021, and April 30, 2021.
All the incidents occurred after he became the battalion’s top enlisted soldier in November 2019, according to Fort Polk. He was removed from the job in June 2021, just weeks after Lt. Col. Jon-Paul Depreo took command of the engineer battalion at the base.
Depreo is scheduled to appear in court June 26 for one count of abusive sexual contact, one count of maltreatment of a subordinate and two counts of conduct unbecoming of an officer, Waryas said last month.
Depreo is expected to plead guilty to some or all the charges, according to the Army’s online court docket. However, the docket does not clarify the charges to which he will plead guilty.
The two cases are not related, Waryas said.
Compton enlisted as an engineer in January 1998, according to an online biography. He has served at Fort Bragg, N.C., now Fort Liberty; Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; and Fort Hood, Texas, now Fort Cavazos. He also has been assigned to bases in South Korea and Italy. He served on deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Liberia.
