Who is Randall Hughes? Army sergeant who raped wife, girlfriend and daughter, 16, FINALLY gets 13-year jail
Years after receiving a reprimand, staff sergeant Randall Hughes has been dishonorably discharged and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Investigations revealed that the 2017 rape of Leah Ramirez was not a one-off incident, but rather a part of a series of rapes committed by the US Army officer.
An army CID investigation found multiple allegations of rape against the officer, but he was never disciplined in several instances. Eventually, they uncovered five victims going back nearly a decade. Hughes pleaded guilty to the accusations at a court in Fort Drum, New York. Many of Hughes' victims have since come forward to celebrate the news, while slamming the army for not acting sooner.
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Ramirez believes that there are other victims out there. So far, we only know of a few that Hughes has pleaded guilty to. Here's everything we know about Hughes and his victims.
Who is Randall Hughes?
Not much is known about Hughes. We could not find a Facebook account linked to him, but we did manage to find a LinkedIn account. The account has no picture, so we cannot confirm if it belongs to Hughes, but it is possible. The profile says Hughes graduated from Nashville State Community College with a degree in Business Administration and Management. Between 2004 and 2006, he worked at Penkse Logistics, an international transportation services company. Sometime in 2006, he joined the Army, first working with the 678th Personnel Services.
Between 2007 and 2017 Hughes served as an Observer/Controller/Trainer at the 361st Training Support at Fort Bliss, Texas. The profile claims he "supervised in excess of 34 personnel, as well as materials valued at over $10,000,000 and managed an annual budget in excess of $100,000." In March 2013, he was promoted to Training Manager, a role which he still is according to the profile. We could not find any records to corroborate these claims.
Prior to the hearing, Hughes was being held at Oneida County Correctional Facility in New York. He will be transferred to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth to serve his sentence. Hughes pleaded guilty to two counts of rape, two counts of sexual assault consummated by battery, one count of sexual abuse of a child, one count of assault consummated by a battery on a child, one count of indecent language, and one count of adultery. The sentence was confirmed by the Fort Drum Office of the Staff Judge Advocate in a Facebook post.
Rape victims come forward
Hughes has been accused of raping multiple women, of which a few have come forward to speak to the press. In 2006, he was first accused of raping his then-wife at Fort Carson in Colorado. The charge was dropped as part of his plea agreement. In the summer of 2017, he raped his then-girlfriend at Fort Bliss. Details of these two cases are not available. During a Super Bowl party in 2017, Hughes forced himself on Leah Ramirez at her home near Fort Bliss. According to Army Times, after the party ended, Hughes propositioned her for sex. She said no, so Hughes grabbed her, forced himself upon her against a grill, and later dragged her by the hair into her home, where he raped her.
After she was raped, Ramirez hid in a bathroom until he left. "I waited until the morning and then I went to the hospital to get checked," she recalled. "It took CID 48 hours to get into my house for evidence, so I lived in the crime scene for 48 hours. And then, it took three years to do anything", she told Army Times. Despite the allegations being deemed "credible", Hughes received only a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand and was not prosecuted. Instead, he was transferred to Fort Dix, New Jersey.
In late 2017, Hughes' estranged 14-year-old daughter moved in with him. On March 25, 2020, Hughes gave his daughter a sleeping medication and then raped her. His daughter, Lesley Madsen came forward to speak to the Army Times. She said, "I’m not ashamed of what he did to me. I want people to know I’m a minor and I want them to know that I’m a daughter.” It was only when Lesley came forward to report Hughes that all his full history came to light.