An alley leading to Zushi Beach near Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan, is pictured on July 9, 2022. (Akifumi Ishikawa/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOSUKA, Japan — Japanese prosecutors this week asked for a 2½-year prison term for a U.S. sailor who admitted running drunkenly into a group of Japanese pedestrians, seriously injuring four, at a beach in 2022.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Daniel Krieger, a logistics specialist aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Milius, pleaded for leniency Monday from a three-judge panel during a hearing at the Yokosuka Branch of Yokohama District Court.
At his next hearing, scheduled for Sept. 26, Krieger may be adjudicated and sentenced at the same time, unlike most U.S. courts, which treat conviction and sentencing separately.
Prosecutors argue that Krieger remains a threat to others.
Krieger, assigned to Yokosuka Naval Base, the homeport of the U.S. 7th Fleet about 37 miles south of Tokyo, admitted charging into five people and knocking them down at Zushi Beach on July 9, 2022.
Krieger has pleaded not guilty, explaining that he could not be held responsible for his actions because he suffers from a pre-existing brain injury and was severely intoxicated at the time.
All five people were injured, the most severely a man, 33 at the time, with multiple sprained vertebrae and a woman, 58 at the time, with a broken upper jaw, broken nasal bone and other facial injuries.
Police recommended charging Krieger with five counts of bodily injury, but prosecutors ultimately indicted him on four counts. Prosecutors, not police, determine criminal charges in the Japanese justice system.
Krieger and his attorneys have not denied the basic facts of the case, but in his defense argue that he was impaired.
“Due to acute alcohol intoxication accompanied by delirium, he was in a severely altered state of consciousness with significant cognitive impairment and impaired judgement; he was in a state of pathological intoxication in which he was unable to properly understand the meaning and impact of his own actions,” Krieger’s defense attorney Takashi Takano said in his closing statement Monday.
Krieger, addressing the court, said his brain injury and pelvic floor dysfunction led him to a “path of extreme alcohol consumption.” Doctors have “never found the source” or offered him relief, he said.
“That led me to adopt a self-destructive mentality,” he told the judges.
Prosecutors dismissed Krieger’s defense, instead insisting that his was “a selfish crime, which took out an anger on the innocent victims.” They proposed a prison term with hard labor.
The prosecutor argued that Krieger’s claim of delirium and lack of memory that night contradicts the evidence.
“The defendant was not found to have exhibited any abnormal behavior that would suggest he was strongly influenced by any mental illness immediately before, during and after the crimes,” the prosecutor said in court.
Krieger has shown no remorse, is attempting to avoid criminal responsibility and is likely to commit another crime, the prosecutor added.
He said Krieger has yet to agree with the injured parties on compensation. Krieger in court said he could not pay the 22 million yen — about $153,000 — they had asked for in a separate on-going civil lawsuit.
The injured also addressed the court, two in person, and written statements from all four. One woman, now about 60, sobbed as she spoke.
“Over two years have passed, but there hasn’t been any apology or remorse [from Krieger] and when I think that I could have died at the time, the fear I felt then comes back to me,” she said.
She said she believed the incident was “an indiscriminate, random attack” and that Krieger could repeat his actions if he drinks again.
A man, now 35, said he was still afraid of walking alone day and night and that “it makes me tremble even when someone running approaches me from behind.”
