Air Force reassigns colonel convicted of sex crime

The Air Force Materiel Command has reassigned a colonel convicted of sexual imposition to a work location outside of the headquarters building after an employee filed a complaint, according to a command statement released late Friday.

Col. Mayan Shah, 49, of Fairborn, was assigned to a work site location in the AFMC headquarters building at Wright-Patterson not in proximity to the individual a day after the Aug. 30 complaint was filed, according to Ron Fry, an AFMC spokesman.

On Sept. 5, Shah was "assigned to an alternate location outside of the Air Force Materiel Command Headquarters" which was acknowledged in a Sept. 9 letter the research analyst signed, Fry said in an email Friday.

The statement said the individual who filed the complaint had concerns about working near the senior officer, but the command late Friday did not provide specific details about the nature of the complaint.

In June, a Dayton Municipal Court jury convicted Shah of sexual imposition, a third-degree criminal misdemeanor. During the one-day trial, an AFMC contractor employee testified as a witness against Shah. She alleged he had approached her with a sexually explicit proposition during an off-duty incident at AleFest in Carrollton Park in August 2012.

The jury found Shah guilty of an incident involving another festival attendee who had accused him of inappropriately touching her under her skirt. The colonel, who had pleaded not guilty, testified he had been drinking ale at the festival and had no memory of the allegations courtroom witnesses accused him of at the event. He also testified he did not recall meeting any of the women or doing anything harmful to them.

Dayton Municipal Court Judge Christopher D. Roberts sentenced Shah to a suspended 60-day jail sentence, 180 days of home detention, three years of probation and classified him as a Tier I sex offender, court records said. The defendant also was ordered to stay away from bars, nightclubs and festivals, documents show.

Shah filed an appeal to his case, and a court order to temporarily register as a sex offender was delayed. The Court of Appeals of Ohio Second Appellate District last month denied the colonel's request to avoid registering as a sex offender, court records showed.

The officer has applied for retirement from the Air Force, according to an AFMC statement. "Because he has been convicted in civilian court of a crime of moral turpitude, he will be processed for an Officer Grade Determination, which may lead to a reduction in rank upon his retirement, in accordance with Air Force instructions," Fry said in an email.

The command cited privacy act restrictions and has not released additional information on whether the Air Force has taken administrative actions because of the civilian court's conviction.

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