An Air Force Academy official has just been arrested after a police sting finally caught him in the act of purchasing sex from an undercover officer, Military.com reports.
Dermot J. Coll, the official in question, resigned on Friday, having already been convicted in 1996 and 2007 for drunk driving. This time, Coll went one step too far. He tried to solicit sex from an undercover police officer, promising cash in exchange.
“We did arrest Dermot Coll,” Colorado Springs police Sgt. James Sokolik confirmed.
His 1996 sentence amounted to 12 months of probation and 24 hours of community service. For the 2007 incident, the sentence was slightly more involved—20 days in jail. It is unclear whether the academy was aware of his prior convictions. The latest sting comes at a time when the reputation of the academy is dwindling, owing to a growing trend of misconduct from athletes. Aside from reiterating the core values of the service, the Pentagon has been silent on the issue, and the academy has declined to give a statement about the most recent arrest.
Coll graduated from the academy in 1995, returning a few years later in 1998 as an assistant lacrosse coach. He received a promotion to assistant athletic director, and finally finished off in 2013 as head of the non-profit Air Force Academy Athletic Corp.
“I was proud to serve with some of the finest men and women during my time there,” Coll said in a statement after his resignation. “It will always be near and dear to my heart.”
Coll’s arrest represents yet another setback for the academy, which has suffered from scandal after scandal in recent years.
In December 2013, a former cadet claimed he was told by academy officials to become an informant and run operations to track potential rapists, drug users, and perpetrators of sexual assault, according to the local Colorado paper The Gazette. When the operations became public knowledge, the cadet said that his superiors left him out in the cold and expelled him. The Gazette also recently wrote about another scandal dating back to 2011, in which 32 cadets were investigated for using date rape drugs and committing sexual assault. Three of those cadets were subsequently court-martialed and expelled for their behavior.
This October, the inspector general gave the academy a “C” grade for effectiveness, but recommended no legal investigation.
