US Airman Convicted of Sexual Assault in Miami After UK Incidents
Jurisdictional complexities emerge as Suffolk police review case transfer practices following James Loubeau's five-year sentence.
Image: Eddie Pollard / AI
Callum Smith
US airman James Loubeau was convicted in Miami, Florida, last July for the sexual assault of a woman on a military base in England, receiving a five-year prison sentence.
This stringent measure follows his release, designed to ensure public safety.
The conviction stems from an 'assaultive spree' between April and July 2019, involving six women across Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, court papers detail.
Three of the victims were US personnel stationed at RAF Mildenhall; British civilians comprised the remaining victims.
Suffolk police transferred responsibility for investigating two alleged rapes to the US Air Force on August 14, 2019, merely 11 days after the initial report.
This decision now undergoes review by Suffolk police, who also examine their broader case-transfer practices.
A 1951 agreement between the US and UK grants the US military jurisdiction for investigating crimes when the victim is another US armed forces member or when the alleged crime occurs while a service member is on duty.
Two British women met Loubeau and another airman in Bury St Edmunds, accepting a lift home.
Instead, the airmen drove them to Mildenhall, where they received alcohol.
The women later woke naked and confused, lacking memory of events, believing they had been raped.
Court documents claim the American airmen offered to drive the women home but instead drove to the Mildenhall base, proceeding to Loubeau’s bedroom.
Prosecutors in the case claimed Loubeau believed he could attack women with impunity, preying on sleeping or drunk individuals in a disturbing pattern.
An American servicewoman also claimed Loubeau sexually assaulted her in June 2019 after breaking into her bedroom on the base.
She reported waking up and having sex with him while she was in and out of consciousness, believing she had been raped.
Court documents further claim Loubeau entered the victim's bedroom by surreptitiously slipping his hand through her open window and unlatching her door.
Loubeau also allegedly assaulted a third British woman in her Cambridgeshire home in April 2019, according to documents.
Prosecutors asserted that Loubeau carried out an assaultive spree in Suffolk in 2019, and his brazen conduct reflected his belief that he could act with impunity.