Office of the Bravo Fleet Judge Advocate General

The Defendant, Gabriel Lyons, is charged with violating the following Article(s) of Conduct and Reprimand as defined by Section 6 of the Bravo Fleet Judicial Code.

• 1x Hacking (Plea: None)
• 1x Disreputable Behavior (Plea: None)

  No member shall partake in any action that brings disrepute onto themselves, the fleet as a whole, or any independent fleet, ship, or individual member. Actions include those done by a member, either within or outside traditional Bravo Fleet activities and communication channels, that reflect on the above parties, such as: undermining or circumvention of the Bravo Fleet Charter, Judicial Code, or policies, acts to sabotage, stealing of property, filing frivolous complaints under this code or otherwise abusing the judicial process, or any conduct forbidden by these articles.

At 1:00 am on August 21st, 2009 the Bravo Fleet Admiralty was notified that the Task Force 38 website had disappeared and was no longer accessible. Upon further inspection, it was discovered that the problem was not a server issue but instead that all of the files on the tf38.bravofleet.com web account had been deleted. After the immediate problem of the task force website was addressed the matter was referred to then JAGCO Vice Admiral Thras. He directed the Investigator to look into the matter and who might have deleted the site. In the course of his investigation the Investigator cleared those other members that had access to the FTP for the site and received a chat log where Gabriel Lyons confessed to another member that he had in fact deleted the site. He was then charged with Hacking and Disreputable Behavior and a tribunal was called. Given he failed to respond to JAG on that matter, an automatic plea of Not Guilty was entered and a trial by jury was convened under then Acting JAGCO Rear Admiral Cabot Shaw. The jury unanimously found the defendant guilty on all charges. Given the offense, the JAGCO decided at that point to seek expulsion. As such, it was decided that instead of a unilateral sentence imposed by the JAGCO given the severity of expulsion that a separate sentencing jury would be called. That five person panel was convened and also voted unanimously to expel Stewart Lyons from Bravo Fleet permanently.

This was the first Trial by Jury under the new JAG legislation. Several issues in the jury verification process were encountered at the beginning of the process but were overcome before the trial began. In addition, the sitting JAGCO was forced to make several judgement calls during the trial itself on the subject of burden of proof and what vote was required by the jury to convict. As neither subject was directly specified in the constitution, a unanimous decision of the three jurors was required and a burden of proof of a preponderance of evidence was set. Given that the Bravo Fleet JAG can not deprive any member of their freedom or remove basic rights from them (as this is an online club), preponderance of evidence (the same burden required in civil cases) was decided as the proper threshold to hold to instead of the more stringent burden of proving the case beyond all reasonable doubt (as required in criminal cases)

Gabriel Lyons (AKA Stewart) was convicted by unanimous decision on both the count of Disreputable Behavior and Hacking for his deletion of the Task Force 38 website. The case eliminated all other suspects with access as well as provided a confession by the defendant. Given that the destruction of the fleet’s task force sites is one of the most disruptive actions that any member can undertake, it was decided to seek a permanent expulsion sentence in this case. Given that the deletion of that site impacted all members of the Task Force, and directly impacted on the fleet’s ability to contact the CO’s and players of that Task Force (given that the TF website is really the only reliable repository of contact information for all members) the offense easily warrants the sentence. This was not simply a personal disagreement, this was one member of the fleet taking out his aggressions against the BFA on those people he supposedly served, who themselves were uninvolved in the situation at hand. In choosing to put his own personal issues ahead of the needs of the membership, I feel that he has forfeited the right to be welcomed in our group as a member in the future. However, since expulsion is by far the most harsh punishment possible in the fleet a five person sentencing jury was called to determine whether or not expulsion was indeed warranted in this case. That body voted unanimously in favor of expulsion in this case.

On this day, November 6th, 2009, I the acting Judge Advocate General of Bravo Fleet now announce the punishment that the JAG office lays upon Gabriel Lyons (aka Stewart). Upon the conclusion of fair and just proceedings, this office finds you:

On the Charge of Disreputable Behavior- You brought disrepute upon the Fleet and your Task Force in engaging in acts of sabotage that disrupted the Task Force.

On the Charge of Hacking – You used access to the Task Force 38 website admin to delete the Task Force website leaving the site non functional.

Sentencing for the party is as follows:
As approved by a sentencing jury, you will be stripped of all medals, awards, and rank, and expelled from Bravo Fleet permanently.