An Army veteran was sentenced in federal court on May 12 for three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor less than 12 years old and a single count of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign place.
John Michael Bradley, 66, of Springfield, Missouri, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Bough to 35 years in federal prison without parole, according to a Department of Justice release.
Bradley pleaded guilty in May of 2025 to all four counts of a federal indictment on the first day of a jury trial at the end of the first witness’s testimony. The indictment centered around Bradley’s criminal conduct occurring between 2005 and 2006 while he was an active-duty member of the Army in Honduras, and between 2007 and 2008 when he returned to Honduras multiple times as a civilian.
According to the DOJ, Bradley admitted that he met the minor victim while stationed in Honduras in 2005. Over the course of the next three years, beginning when the minor victim was four years old, Bradley sexually abused the child on numerous occasions, the release states.
Bradley “admitted that after his active-duty tour in Honduras ended in 2006, he returned to Honduras from the United States with the intent to engage in sexual acts with the child and did engage in sexual acts with the minor victim,” the release states.
The minor victim, now an adult, reported the crimes to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigations Division in 2021. Bradley has a previous federal conviction in 2019 for possession of child pornography, also in the Western District of Missouri.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.
