Staff Sgt. Austin Wecker, seen here as a corporal in Seoul, South Korea, in 2018. Wecker was sentenced April 29, 2024, to 36 years in prison following a court-martial in Kaiserslautern, Germany. He was found guilty of rape and sexually abusing three children, along with related crimes. (Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance)

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — An Army staff sergeant assigned to Baumholder who raped and sexually abused children while stationed in the United States and Germany was given a sentence of 36 years in prison.

Military judge Lt. Col. Scott Hughes found Austin Wecker, 30, guilty on nine counts of related charges late Monday, following a weeklong court-martial at Kleber Kaserne.

Wecker’s three victims, the youngest of whom was 7, testified about the abuse they suffered after their families invited the soldier into their homes.

“I have consistent anxiety. I don’t like to be left alone anymore,” said one victim while sobbing at Monday’s pre-sentencing hearing. She was 9 years old when Wecker sexually abused her from under a blanket during family movie nights, she testified.

Two of the victims are German sisters and both testified during the trial. Stars and Stripes does not name victims of sexual crimes to protect their identities.

Between 2021 and 2022, Wecker was living with the sisters and their mother in Niedermohr, a village about 20 miles southeast of Baumholder and 7 miles east of Ramstein Air Base.

He was renting a room from the girls’ mother, who at the time was married to Wecker’s friend, another U.S. soldier who was not the sisters’ father. Wecker carried on an affair with her while sexually abusing the daughters, according to court testimony.

The younger sister, now 10, told the court how Wecker had shown her pornographic videos in his bedroom and raped her when she was 7.

“It hurt and it felt really strange,” she said through a translator. “I said, ‘stop it.’”

The girl’s testimony included graphic depictions of repeated and varied abuse.

“I was just scared,” she said when the prosecution asked how she felt when Wecker was abusing her.

The older sister testified that in February 2022, when she was 16 and home alone with Wecker, the soldier put alcohol in her drink without her knowledge and asked her inappropriate questions, such as whether she “used sex toys.”

As he asked her this, he had both hands down the front of his sweatpants, she said, adding that she soon left the room.

“Working in the Army is a job that is honored, and I think someone like this shouldn’t be honored,” she testified.

Then-Pfc. Austin Wecker, right, engages a role player during a field training exercise at Seosan Air Base, South Korea, in 2014. Wecker, who rose to staff sergeant, was convicted April 29, 2024, of rape and sexual offenses against children during a general court-martial in Kaiserslautern, Germany. (Young-Jae Shin/U.S. Army)

The third victim, who lives in Texas and is not related to the German sisters, said Wecker sexually abused her over several months between 2016 and 2017.

The girl told the court that Wecker repeatedly sexually abused her in the dark under a blanket during the movie gatherings.

“I don’t even watch movies anymore with anyone,” she said in court Monday.

Wecker’s defense relied on assertions that his accusers held false memories derived from sexual acts they may have seen or overheard, or from trauma.

“Something odd would have been noticed,” said Joseph Jordan, Wecker’s civilian attorney, questioning the account of the Texas victim’s testimony.

Wecker was invited to the family’s home for Thanksgiving so that he didn’t have to spend the holiday alone, the girl’s father testified.

Both he and the father were serving at Fort Hood, which has since been renamed Fort Cavazos. Wecker became a close family friend and would visit nearly every weekend, the court heard.

Wecker and the family of five — the victim, her father and mother and two younger brothers — would often watch movies in the living room in the dark. Wecker always sat next to the 9-year-old girl on the couch with a blanket over them, several family members testified.

The girl said it took four years to tell her parents about the abuse, partly because one of her brothers had been diagnosed with cancer and she didn’t want to make things more difficult for the family and take attention away from him.

The girl’s father, a former Army master gunner who worked with the Patriot missile system, fought back tears on the stand Monday when he recalled finding out about the abuse. He got a call when he was on his way to recruiting school, he said.

“It was the realization of my worst nightmare,” he testified. “I had to turn around to get home.”

The father eventually left the Army. He couldn’t deploy and leave his family, believing that he no longer could trust his fellow soldiers, he said.

“It’s fundamentally changed how I see the Army,” he said. “I’m always on watch; I’m always paranoid.”

Wecker waived his right to a jury trial and was found guilty by the judge on three counts of rape of a child under the age of 12, four counts of sexual abuse of a child, and one count each of indecent language and indecent conduct.

During the sentencing phase of the trial, Wecker apologized and attributed his crimes to his own history of being sexually abused as a child.

Wecker’s sentence includes reduction in rank to private and forfeiture of all pay and allowances. He had faced a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.

Wecker was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, a subordinate of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command.