Graduation ceremony in 2008 at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill. (Scott Thornbloom/Navy)
Two recent graduates of the Navy’s basic training have been charged with negligent homicide and each face a court-martial over allegations that they provided a lethal dose of fentanyl to a fellow sailor at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill., and moved the body instead of calling for help, according to court records.
Seaman Brandon R. Ledesma and Seaman Recruit Caleb J. Taper are each charged with negligent homicide, manslaughter, obstruction of justice and distributing and using illegal drugs in connection to the 2021 overdose death at the Navy’s boot camp in Illinois, according to court records.
At the time of the death on Nov. 6, 2021, Ledesma and Taper were assigned to Naval Station Great Lakes and awaiting orders to attend Naval Submarine School in Groton, Conn., according to Katie Hewett, spokeswoman for Navy Region Mid-Atlantic.
The charges come as overdose deaths in the military from fentanyl have increased steeply in the past five years. The drug was involved in 88% of military overdose deaths in 2021, according to Defense Department data provided to Congress earlier this year. Five years earlier, fentanyl was only involved in 36% of overdose deaths.
Fentanyl, an approved pain medication being produced and sold illegally, killed nearly 70,000 Americans in 2021, according to the National Safety Council, a nonprofit safety advocacy group that tracks preventable deaths and injuries.
A photo of Building 1 at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill. , in December 2021. (Joseph E. Montemarano/Navy)
The Navy saw the number of sailors who died from an illicit drug overdose rise from 11 in 2017 to 17 deaths in 2021, according to the Defense Department, which made the data available in February after members of Congress requested it.
Ledesma and Taper are accused of providing another sailor with fentanyl, according to court documents. The three sailors were all in training together and lived in the same barracks building, Hewett said. She declined to offer further information on the victim, whose name was redacted from the charge sheets.
When the sailor collapsed, Ledesma and Taper did not call emergency services. Instead, they moved the sailor from one location to a bed within the same building because they feared criminal charges, according to the charge sheets.
The location where the incident occurred was redacted from the charge sheets.
The court documents also accuse the two men of distributing, using and introducing to the base illegal drugs, including fentanyl, LSD, cocaine and delta-9. Ledesma’s drug charges stretch from March 2021 to August 2022, while Taper’s are spread across a nine-month period from October 2021 to July 2022.
Ledesma, who was at a temporary holding unit in Great Lakes at Naval Service Training Command, had a pretrial hearing Thursday and his court-martial is scheduled for Sept. 25, Hewett said. Additional charges against him are conspiracy, violation of a lawful general order, false official statement and involuntary manslaughter. He is also charged with larceny for stealing more than $500 worth of video games, clothing and hygiene items from a base store Feb. 7, according to his charge sheet.
Taper is charged with larceny and fleeing arrest from an on-base store for stealing more than $150 worth of video games and a teeth-whitening pen Feb. 8, according to his charge sheet. He was detained Thursday in the Lake County Sheriff’s Office because the Navy does not maintain a brig in the Great Lakes area, Hewett said.
Taper’s next court appearance is Sept. 13 with a trial set to begin Oct. 9. He is also charged with accessory after the fact, conspiracy, breach of restriction, failure to obey order or regulation and involuntary manslaughter.
