UNITED STATES NAVY–MARINE CORPS

COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS

_________________________

No. 201600309

_________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Appellee

v.

CHRISTOPHER B. MEIERS

Hospital Corpsman Third Class (E-4), U.S. Navy

Appellant

_________________________

Appeal from the United States Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary 

Military Judge: Colonel Peter S. Rubin, USMC.

Convening Authority: Commanding General, 2d Marine Division,

Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Staff Judge Advocate’s Recommendation: Lieutenant Colonel

Winston G. McMillan, USMC.

For Appellant: Scott B. Jack, Esq.; Lieutenant Commander Jeremy 

J. Wall, JAGC, USN.

For Appellee: Commander James E. Carsten, JAGC, USN; 

Lieutenant Jetti L. Gibson, JAGC, USN.

_________________________

Decided 30 Jun 2017

_________________________

Before CAMPBELL, FULTON and HUTCHISON, Appellate Military 

Judges

_________________________

This opinion does not serve as binding precedent, but may be cited 

as persuasive authority under NMCCA Rule of Practice and 

Procedure 18.2.

_________________________

PER CURIAM:

At a fully contested general court-martial, officer and enlisted members 

convicted the appellant of stealing and selling military property worth more

than $500.00—violations of Articles 108 and 121, Uniform Code of Military 
United States v. Meiers, No. 201600309

2

Justice (UCMJ), 10 U.S.C. §§ 921 and 908 (2012). The members sentenced 

the appellant to one year and six months’ confinement, reduction to pay 

grade E-1, a $10,000.00 fine, and a dishonorable discharge. The convening 

authority (CA) approved the sentence, as adjudged.

In his sole assignment of error, the appellant contends the sentence is 

inappropriately severe. He urges us to only affirm a sentence that includes 

“no more than 10 months of the 18 months of confinement . . . mitigates the 

[d]ishonorable [d]ischarge to a [b]ad[-c]onduct [d]ischarge[, and] disapproves 

the $10,000 fine[.]”

1 We conclude the findings and sentence are correct in law 

and fact and that no error materially prejudicial to the appellant’s 

substantial rights occurred. Arts. 59(a) and 66(c), UCMJ.

I. BACKGROUND

To facilitate the practical-application training portion of local combat lifesaving courses, some Camp Lejeune-area Navy Corpsmen, including the 

appellant, got permission to take expired or otherwise unserviceable field 

medical supplies—staged for Disposal Reutilization Management Office 

(DRMO) actions—to their commands from the installation Individual Issue 

Facility (IIF). The supplies were individual first-aid kit (IFAK) components 

previously issued to individual Marines, which were sorted into specific IIF 

containers as part of the formal gear-turn-in process. Upon their turn-in, 

unexpired IFAK components were placed into “red bins” for re-issue, expired 

components were placed into a Tri-Wall box about three feet from the red 

bins, and hazardous components were placed into nearby “gray totes.”2 The

IIF warehouse manager testified that DRMO officials regularly inspected the 

containers to remove serviceable, unexpired items, and document items 

deemed appropriate for off-site disposal before removal:

[O]nce the Tri-Wall was full or near full, my DRMO people 

would go through, [and] pull out anything that wasn’t supposed 

to be in there. Then they will create and [sic] ETD [effective 

transfer date,] which is created t[h]rough the system from 

DRMO. Once the ETD is approved, we would take that TriWall to a landfill.3

 

 

1 Appellant’s Brief of 11 Jan 2017 at 8.

2 Record at 178.

3 Id. at 179. In explaining the reference to “my DRMO people,” the manager 

further testified, “I have two of my employees that are designated to take care of all 

of my DRMO. Anything that’s unserviceable, that is expired, anything that doesn’t 

meet our criteria to provide—going on our shelf for reusing.” Id.
United States v. Meiers, No. 201600309

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Instead of a formal issuance process for the combat life-saving course 

materials, an IIF contractor accompanied the corpsmen to the returned IFAK 

components containers area, allowed them to select items from the Tri-Wall, 

and leave with those training items based on an honor system. During 

February and March 2015, the appellant retrieved combat tourniquets, 

bandages, clotting gauze, chest seals, wound set kits, pressure dressings and 

water-jel packs from the IIF. The IIF employee with whom the appellant 

coordinated his visits testified that she did not constantly observe the 

corpsmen she escorted to the Tri-Wall box because the sorting containers 

were “at the end of our issue point” and “[s]ometimes there[ are] Marines 

there that ask questions and I turn my back.”4 She agreed, on crossexamination, with the trial defense counsel’s assertion, “sometimes stuff 

that’s not supposed to be in that Tri-Wall container, does end up in” there.5

On 23 February 2015, in a series of text messages, the appellant 

discussed selling “more tourniquets, pressure dressings, and combat gauze[,]” 

and specific available quantities, to an individual who, unbeknownst to him,

was a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) cooperating witness.6

Days later, they agreed on $2,045.00 for the items. On 27 February 2015, the 

cooperating witness brought an undercover NCIS agent with him to meet the 

appellant at a location just off the military base, and introduced the 

undercover agent as the actual buyer. During the encounter, the appellant 

sold 275 combat tourniquets, 126 pressure dressings, 171 quick clot combat 

gauze kits, 94 chest seals, and 70 wound set kits for $2,045.00 in cash.

During March 2015, the appellant initiated two more sales with the 

undercover NCIS agent via text messages. Both sales occurred at the same 

meeting place as the initial February transaction, only the cooperating 

witness was no longer involved. On 3 March 2015, the appellant sold 100 

tourniquets, 226 chest seals, and 284 quick clot combat gauze kits for 

$1,500.00 in cash. On 17 March 2015, during a “buy-bust operation,”7 the 

appellant sold 33 quick clot combat gauze kits, 80 H bandages, 480 burn 

dressing kits, and 278 tourniquets for what he thought was $2,600.00 in cash 

before he was apprehended on site. NCIS seized an additional 25 quick clot 

combat gauze kits, 86 H pressure bandages, 57 cinch tights, 11 chest seals, 

and 73 combat tourniquets from the appellant’s house.

 

4 Id. at 192. 

5 Id. at 195.

6 Prosecution Exhibit (PE) 15 at 1.

7 Record at 147.
United States v. Meiers, No. 201600309

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At trial, and without objection, trial counsel amended the approximate 

value alleged in the larceny specification from $200,000.00 to $77,000.00. The 

NCIS agent testified about the total larceny value based upon his review of a 

government price list, which was also admitted into evidence without 

objection as Prosecution Exhibit (PE) 23. In discussing how the agreed-upon 

purchase price of the items sold during the undercover operation was only 

$6,145.00, he explained that government property is normally resold at a 

fraction of its actual value, “kind of like a pawnshop value, used car value, 

something like that. When it’s no longer brand new straight from the factory, 

it does not have the same value.”8 A Defense Logistics Agency employee 

testified that PE 23 was derived from the Federal Logistics Information 

Service, provides an item’s price by its National Stock Number, and that all 

the items seized or bought from the appellant cost the government “between 

$75,000 and $100,000.”

9

Arguing that the government failed to introduce evidence of value for the 

larceny specification, the defense filed a motion for a finding of not guilty, 

pursuant to RULE FOR COURTS-MARTIAL 917, MANUAL FOR COURTS-MARTIAL,

UNITED STATES (2012 ed.). Part of the military judge’s ruling included the 

following:

Based on the amount the accused is alleged to have stolen and 

the prices as indicated in [PE] 23, the government has 

introduced some evidence that it was of a value greater than 

$500 as alleged, or at least of some value.

Additionally, the government painfully walked each witness 

through each box, opened up, and showed at least some of those 

items were in the original packaging[,] which means that they 

are, according to testimony, allowed to be reused and ostensibly 

of the original value. All the witnesses also testified that the 

items contained in each box represent the ones they have up in

[the consolidated issue facility]. Therefore, I find that the 

government has shown some evidence as to the value of the 

items alleged in Charge I[,] in [the sole] Specification. And the 

motion to dismiss is denied.10 

As part of the findings instructions, the military judge instructed the 

members, without objection, about how they may determine value:

 

8 Id. at 161.

9 Id. at 160-61, 207-10. 

10 Id. at 217.
United States v. Meiers, No. 201600309

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Value is a question of fact. The price listed in an official 

publication is evidence of its value at the time of the offense,

provided the item was in the same condition as the item listed 

in the official price list. The price listed in an official price list 

does not necessarily prove the value of an item. In determining 

the actual value of the item you must consider all of the 

evidence concerning its condition in value. In determining the 

question of value, you should consider the testimony you have 

heard, the exhibits offered into evidence, and the condition of 

the items in evidence and all other evidence concerning the fair 

market value of the property described in the charges.11

II. DISCUSSION

The appellant argues his “dishonorable discharge, a $10,000 fine and 18 

months [of] confinement is inappropriately severe based on the individual 

circumstances of the case . . . .”

12 Part of those relevant case circumstances, 

he contends, includes an inflated value of the medical items—“the 

replacement value of brand new items”—being admitted without any 

clarifying instructions about how “these numbers did not adequately reflect

the value of the property at the time of its theft and sale[,]” and the trial 

counsel’s “factually incorrect” and “specious” sentencing argument that “the 

total value of these items, if replaced by new ones, was $75,000!”

13

We review sentence appropriateness de novo. United States v. Lane, 64 

M.J. 1, 2 (C.A.A.F. 2006). “Sentence appropriateness involves the judicial 

function of assuring that justice is done and that the accused gets the 

punishment he deserves.” United States v. Healy, 26 M.J. 394, 395 (C.M.A. 

1988). This requires our “individualized consideration of the particular 

accused on the basis of the nature and seriousness of the offense and the 

character of the offender.” United States v. Snelling, 14 M.J. 267, 268 (C.M.A. 

1982) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Despite our significant 

discretion in reviewing the appropriateness and severity of an adjudged 

sentence, we may not engage in acts of clemency. United States v. Nerad, 69 

M.J. 138, 146 (C.A.A.F. 2010).

The appellant repeatedly abused his position as a corpsman to take 

government property for his own personal profit. He then purposefully and 

repeatedly initiated encounters with purchasers—unbeknownst to him, 

participants in an undercover operation. He further indicated his intent to 

 

11 Id. at 238; see also Appellate Exhibit X at 7.

12 Appellant’s Brief at 5.

13 Id. at 7 (emphasis in original).
United States v. Meiers, No. 201600309

6

continue the scheme immediately before he was finally apprehended. We 

considered, and find unpersuasive, the appellant’s contentions that the 

government’s evidence14 and arguments regarding the value of the larceny

amount were improper. The adjudged confinement period was significantly 

less than the maximum possible—20 years of confinement—and the 

circumstances of the crimes make a dishonorable discharge and the adjudged 

fine part of the proper sentence components. With individualized 

consideration of the appellant, the nature and seriousness of his offenses, his 

record of service, and all the matters within the record of trial, we find the 

adjudged sentence appropriate.

III. CONCLUSION

The findings and the sentence are affirmed.

For the Court

R.H. TROIDL

Clerk of Court 

 

14 We note that evidence of the 2015 transactions with the undercover agent 

included the appellant’s own recorded and transcribed explanations that he sold fully 

serviceable, unexpired medical items: “I mean, they’re all in good condition. I took all 

the ones out that were all unsealed or broken.” PE 18 at 3. “I know most of [the gel 

packs] are, like, all the way out [sic] till 2019. The other, like, the majority are, like 

’18 to ’19. . . . And then some are—or [a] few of them are the end of this year and 

some 2016 and stuff. But for the most part when I was spot-checking them, the 

majority of them were pretty far out there.” PE 19 at 2.