Top navy man punished in fake chip case
News on 6 May 2014
News on 6 May 2014
Our readers may recall a fake chip case last year at the Horseshoe Casino in Iowa in which US Navy Rear Admiral Timothy Giardina was implicated.
The investigation attracted international media coverage due to Admiral Giardina’s sensitive professional position at the time – he was deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska and responsible for nuclear weapons.
The officer was demoted to two-star rank and transferred to a Washington desk job as Naval Criminal Investigative Service enquiries started, and these have now culminated in the admiral being reprimanded and ordered to forfeit $4,000 in pay….but he will remain in the navy in his new position as a staff officer.
A navy statement said that Giardina’s involvement in the casino gambling case violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice on two counts of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
The first count involved Giardina lying to an investigator and the second related to his failure to surrender – and his subsequent use of – three $500 counterfeit poker chips that he claimed he had found at the casino.
The statement revealed that Giardina accepted the “non-judicial punishment” from Adm. Bill Gortney rather than exercising his option to challenge it by requesting a court martial.
Giardina graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1979, and his career as a submarine and subsequently senior nuclear officer had been outstanding prior to the Horseshoe incident.
