(WWJ) A Detroit man has been sentenced to one year and a day in prison for strangling his wife near a U.S. Army base in Japan.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, in July of 2021, 39-year-old Robert Hammock got in an argument with his wife at their off-base home, near the U.S. Army Garrison Japan in Sagamihara, Japan.
When the fight got heated, officials say Hammock punched his wife in the eye twice, hit her in the head, pushed her to the ground, and strangled her.
The woman was able to escape when Hammock stopped assaulting and tried to pick up her cell phone, which she'd dropped "due to the force of the strangulation," federal authorities said, in a news release.
The victim suffered bruising around her eye and on her cheekbone, and lacerations on her neck.
Hammock was charged following an investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID).
On May 4, he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to one count of assault of a spouse by strangulation.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Dawn N. Ison for the Eastern District of Michigan, and Special Agent in Charge Michael DeFamio of the Department of the Army CID Far East Field Office announced Hammock's sentence on Friday.
Trial Attorney Chelsea Schinnour of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Taylor for the Eastern District of Michigan prosecuted the case.