A federal appeals court ordered a new trial Monday for a former Air Force sergeant convicted of molesting his adopted daughter while on duty overseas.
Clifton Corey, 64, was convicted in 1998 for sexually abusing his stepdaughter in Japan and the Philippines and was sentenced last year to 21 years in prison.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the conviction obtained in a Hawaii federal court, saying Corey did not get a fair trial.
The appeals panel, which in a separate opinion said the government has the authority to prosecute U.S. citizens for illegal activity overseas, said a lower court prejudiced him by not allowing Corey to cross-examine the stepdaughter at trial.
According to trial testimony, Corey began sexually abusing his stepdaughter in 1992 when she was 15 years old and continued to do so until 1997, during the time she and her brother were living with Corey at Yokota Air Force Base in Japan and at the American Embassy Housing complex in Manila.
Corey was prosecuted in Hawaii, where he was arrested for crimes occurring outside any U.S. judicial district. He claimed his former wife induced the stepdaughter to fabricate charges against him.
The panel's order demanded lower-court hearings on whether Corey should be released from prison.<
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