US Air Force captain convicted of strangling partner, acquitted of sexual assault, gets six months and is dismissed

A US Air Force captain was convicted of strangling an intimate partner and sentenced to six months in a corrections facility after a court martial at RAF Lakenheath in April. Jacob Wulfson, 32, was found not guilty of sexual assault. An all-male panel of air force officers handed down the sentence and ordered his dismissal from the service.

The case involved an assault on British academic Sarah Steele in Cambridge in late 2023 after the pair met on a dating app. American military police took over the investigation and US air force prosecutors handled the trial, even though UK law enforcement holds primary jurisdiction over off-duty crimes committed outside US bases.

UK justice minister Jake Richards told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he had seen reporting on the case and would take the details back to the Ministry of Justice.

“It’s a really serious case, really,” Richards said. ” Richards added that military courts in both the US and UK and their interaction with civilian courts remain an area of ongoing review. “I will take this specific case, and you’ll appreciate that I don’t want to say anything that might undermine what needs to be a really thorough and objective look at this case over the coming days and weeks,” he said.