Spelman opted to plead guilty during the proceeding on Sept. 6 despite the fact that his accuser did not come to testify at the court martial, according to Spelman's wife.
U.S. Army Col. and former prosecutor Stephen E. Spelman is shown here during his campaign for Hampden District Attorney in 2010. SPRINGFIELD - Once the chief criminal defense lawyer deployed to Iraq for the U.S. Army and a leading candidate for Hampden district attorney two years ago, Col. Stephen E. Spelman is now in the midst of serving a 60-day military confinement sentence for adultery and related charges.
Spelman, also a recipient of a Bronze Star medal, began serving the sentence at an undisclosed location after a court martial in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 6, where Spelman and his wife, also a former prosecutor and now head of the Bay Path College Criminal Justice Department, Elizabeth G. Dineen, testified.
Spelman also faces a $20,000 fine on the adultery charge if he returns to active duty; the charge involves having engaged in a prohibited extra-marital affair with a subordinate.
During an interview on Friday at the law office where Spelman, 56, went to work as a civilian following his loss in the 2010 Democratic primary for district attorney, Dineen said the sentence is not be the fall from grace it would seem for her husband.
“He deeply regrets his actions and the pain that it inflicted on me as well as his family. He admitted his indiscretion to me three-and-a-half years ago. Additionally, he admitted his failings to his children, his step-children and to my (late) parents,” Dineen said in a statement. She told a long, complicated story about an affair her husband had with a subordinate in the Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG); the affair, according to Dineen, began while Spelman was serving a combat tour in Iraq in 2008 and continued for a time when both returned from overseas that year.
“We have worked extremely hard to heal as a couple, and we have,” Dineen said.
Having not spoken with her husband since a lengthy hearing at Fort McNair eight days earlier, Dineen said Spelman confessed his affair to her and their family members when he chose to end it in 2009. The woman, whom Dineen declined to identify, was silent on the matter until Spelman announced his candidacy for district attorney late that year.
According to Dineen, the woman, who does not live in Western Massachusetts, began sending emails to her and others and threatened Spelman to drop out of the race or she would expose him. He didn’t, and she did, Dineen said.
The woman reported the affair to the Army one day before the primary election in 2010. Spelman was runner-up in a five-way Democratic contest, losing to former state Sen. Stephen J. Buoniconti, who went on to lose in the general election that year to Mark G. Mastroianni.
During the campaign, Spelman touted his military experience which included two combat tours in Iraq plus time working across the country as chief of the Army’s Trial Defense Service and as the senior military officer at Gen. David H. Petraeus’ Law and Order Task Force overseas. He also authored a series of essays for The Republican from the front lines during those tours.
“This tour in Iraq, things are a lot quieter than during my first combat tour,” he wrote in an article published on March 19, 2008.
Dineen, however, says Spelman’s tour of duty in Iraq left a volatile climate on the homefront where the two had married a day before he deployed in the fall of that year. She was grappling with work challenges and managing the ups and downs of Spelman’s two children from a previous marriage and her own son from a prior union. Her late father, Jack Dineen, was showing the early signs of dementia, Dineen said, explaining that she felt herself begin to crumble under the pressure and her attitude toward her husband sour. Isolation also was setting in, she said.
“Unlike the other tours, when I was a total cheerleader, I was ambivalent about this one, at best,” she said.
Dineen said it is unknown what, if any, action Spelman will face from the state Board of Bar Overseers in connection with the military court martial. Attorney Edward McDonough, a partner at the firm, Egan Flanagan and Cohen, where Spelman works, said Spelman instructed them to report it to the legal watchdogs and the outcome is unclear. There is no equivalent crime for civilian lawyers, which complicates the issue, McDonough said.
“Since Steve joined the firm, he has proven himself to be an able and skilled lawyer and a valued colleague. Certainly we regret the situation he experienced years ago during his third tour of duty while in Iraq, but in no way did it affect his work for us,” attorney John J. Egan, managing partner at the firm, said in a statement.
Spelman will retain his rank as colonel in the Army Reserve and intends to retire from the military upon his return home, Dineen said. He opted to plead guilty during the proceeding on Sept. 6 despite the fact that his accuser did not come to testify at the court martial.
“After 26 years as a prosecutor, I’ve never seen a real victim not show up to court,” Dineen said.
Dineen said she and their children will stand by Spelman.
“Our family loves and appreciates Stephen for who he is, for what he has accomplished in his life and for all the good he has done in his life,” she said. “As a family, we chose not to focus on a very human indiscretion that has taken on a disproportionate life of its own.”