Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast
DISGUSTING
03.13.155:25 AM ET
Inside Fort Hood’s Prostitution Ring
It was supposed to be the Army private’s first—and only—time.
The cash-strapped, divorced mother—who The Daily Beast will call Jane—wore the uniform, claimed she needed groceries, and soon met sugar-daddy Sergeant 1st Class Gregory McQueen. The hulking, noncommissioned officer must have seemed trustworthy: He was his battalion’s point man preventing sexual assaults as part of the U.S. Army’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention unit (SHARP) at Fort Hood, Texas, and he played the sax in a gospel band. He was even the vice president of a motorcycle club, Tru Ryderz. McQueen was all those things and he convinced the struggling soldier there was a way out.
The way out was to prostitute herself.
McQueen offered the female soldier “easy money.” McQueen then photographed Jane naked and exhibited her assets to higher-ups posted at Fort Hood. With Jane in his stable, McQueen launched his career as a hustling pimp.
On a Sunday night in February two years ago—Jane was given instructions by McQueen to meet in Room 339 at the La Quinta Inns & Suites right next to the Popeye’s in Killeen, Texas, at 10 p.m. Jane, who was also posted at Fort Hood, said “Brian” arrived at the hotel driving a yellow Hummer with Department of Defense decals on his license plate.
After 10 to 15 minutes of sex, Jane told investigators, she collected $200 and left. “When I got home I felt disgusting,” she told Army investigators. “But at least I could buy food and diapers for my household.”
Jane was one of at least two subordinate soldiers that McQueen folded into his prostitution ring, according a lengthy investigation by the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Command. Their report concluded that among a barrage of sexploits pinned to McQueen, he was pimping subordinate soldiers and offering them up as a la carte flesh for higher-ranking officers who attended his sex parties.
They would be paraded at McQueen’s parties attended by senior officers as part of a wink-wink agreement that there would be booze and women for their enjoyment.
This week, McQueen, 39, already copped to 15 of 21 charges that included pandering, which is to recruit prostitutes. Yesterday, a judge in McQueen’s court-martial demoted him and sentenced him to two years in prison along with a dishonorable discharge.
With McQueen’s plea deal, he managed to avoid six other charges, including sexual assault that could have landed him in a military prison for 40 years. He was found guilty on one charge of battery. The judge agreed McQueen aggressively kissed a female soldier against her will, but didn’t cross into full-blown sexual assault.
Those charges stem from a 2013 incident where McQueen tried to convince another female soldier, who we’ll call Sarah, to turn tricks.
According to the official Army criminal investigation documents The Daily Beast acquired, McQueen and his wife, Sherita, who he called “Rita Rita Pumkin Eater,” were struggling financially.
“When I got home I felt disgusting. But at least I could buy food and diapers for my household.”
McQueen’s wife expressed “issues with [McQueen] prioritizing pleasure over financial priorities,” according to the investigation documents. On March 8, 2013, McQueen’s wife “criticizes him for not paying bills and that they are financially strapped.”
The noncommissioned officer tried to settle his wife’s concerns by informing her he was “working two jobs.”
Indeed, McQueen had started selling suits at the local Killeen Mall. The Daily Beast spoke with a manager at Suits America. The manager, who requested anonymity, said he remembered McQueen lasting no longer than a week but couldn’t recall “why he didn’t stick around.”
It appears McQueen was transparent with his wife when he texted her about “clients,” the official investigative reports confirmed. In one text between the couple, McQueen sent a photo of a female soldier from the Bronx to his wife and pejoratively described her as a “Hood Chick.”
But even before pimping out soldiers, McQueen organized kinky, Fort Hood sexcapades with a married woman.
In text messages to that woman, McQueen asked her if she would be willing to engage in “Choking” “Biting” “Spanking” “Ruff fucking” and insists “U will get dominated.”
She responded in kind: “I want u… and I want a gang bang.”
The woman was willing to pleasure four fellow military higher-ups while her husband watched and photographed.
The “fellas,” as McQueen referred to them, wanted in, but refused to be videotaped. “They are cool with the gang bang and [your husband] watching but they are all seniors in the military and worried about video and pics,” McQueen wrote.
The woman texted back, “No pics then.”
Meanwhile, McQueen branched out into his pimping career.
He thought he had found the perfect private in Sarah (another pseudonym). She was a female soldier who worked at a base parking lot under his command.
In the official investigation by the Army’s CID, Sarah said McQueen invited her to one of his shindigs. “He mentioned to me that he throws parties and a lot of high-ranking people attend them,” she told investigators. But these parties often turned into sex-fueled ragers. “He told me the parties get crazy and don’t be surprised if I was to ever get approached by a male,” she said.
Sarah was creeped out by McQueen’s overtures, but didn’t think parties with military superiors spelled trouble.
That’s when McQueen informed her he was aware she’d been sexually assaulted a year before. “I heard about your situation in [Advanced Individual Training] when you were assaulted by your 1st sergeant,” he told her.
Sarah told investigators she told McQueen that as long as “nobody assaults me and I feel comfortable than I’m fine.”
Then McQueen showed Sarah pics of Fort Hood revelers at his parties on his phone and on his Facebook page where his handle was “Greg Mac.”
McQueen informed Sarah there was an interview process. The potential recruit would “meet somebody who attends these parties and she’ll be able to tell if you’re cool to come.”
After that conversation, McQueen let her off post early one day to meet him at a friend’s house. The friend turned out to be Jane, the same soldier who had agreed to sleep with “Brian” at the La Quinta earlier that month. Not only was that night not her first time, she actually made $100, not $200, and when pressed by investigators admitted she slept with McQueen “on two occasions.” She was now helping her sergeant recruit other women.
At Jane’s home, McQueen slipped into pimp mode.
Jane and Sarah talked money, and Sarah was already convinced. “I’m always down to make money,” she said. McQueen asked her how much. Sarah randomly tossed out: “$100.”
McQueen and Jane both laughed. “You can make $100 just for showing up,” he reportedly said.
He then asked Sarah to “show me what you would do.”
Then and there Sarah realized a McQueen “party” meant whoring herself.
Before she could answer McQueen’s question, Jane asked her: “What are your limitations? Because sucking dick is the money-maker.”
Sarah shrieked: “No! That’s not me.”
According to the investigation documents, McQueen pressed her, asking her to role-play as if she were propositioned at his party. Sarah was a hard sell, telling McQueen the parties amounted to prostitution. McQueen told Jane: “You need to loosen her up,” and then disappeared. Fifteen minutes later McQueen returned with a handle of Everclear and apple juice. Sarah had changed into a pair of shorts and her tan Army-issued T-shirt.
After downing a glass of the mixed drink, Sarah was asked by McQueen to prove she could pleasure a stranger. “OK, so you got your alcohol, now show me what you would do,” he reportedly said, demanding she act it out.
Sarah voiced her concerns that this all added up to prostitution and said, “You can’t sugarcoat it to make it sound good.”
McQueen told Sarah, “Relax,” and ordered Jane to take their new recruit’s hand to help herself “squirt,” meaning to orgasm.
Then Jane left McQueen and Sarah alone. That’s when McQueen started kissing Sarah. “He tried to kiss me on the lips and I backed up,” Sarah told authorities in a sworn statement. “He again told me to relax and tried to kiss me again and I said, ‘Sergeant, I’m not comfortable.’”
McQueen laughed off her reservations and went for the kill. After a few more pecks he got on his knees and “kissed me on my neck, my thigh, and between my legs.”
Sarah told McQueen, “Sergeant, stop!”
A snickering McQueen backed off, saying, “OK.”
McQueen failed to snare Sarah, but he continued his predatory ways. He tried, and failed, to recruit another female soldier we’ll call Diane, who was stripping at a joint called The Bunny Club. McQueen again sicced his one, part-time escort Jane to scout out Diane.
The two started chatting about secret “grown woman stuff.” Since Jane was the sole talent of McQueen’s illicit enterprise she admitted to Diane, “they need more girls.”
“She told me she was having sex with chiefs [sic] for money,” Diane told investigators. “I asked her how much money and she said $400 to $500 a person.”
Jane also told Diane that McQueen’s show had gone on the road before to Austin where she says she had sex with “Army members and non-Army members.”
She had already been paid a visit at the strip club by two of her superiors, warning her to stop dancing, according to her sworn testimony. But before Diane could decide on McQueen’s offer, she was summoned to her superior’s office, she told investigators, and again told she wasn’t “allowed to dance and to not get caught up in anything else.”
While Jane pitched the girls on the money they could make, McQueen’s sales pitch to johns was also cheap and direct. In March 2013, he allegedly pitched sex to a fellow sergeant who was a recruiter at Fort Hood, offering him a good time on the cheap. “I have a female that will do anything you want for $75,” McQueen told him. “I know you are single so I wouldn’t need to find a place for you. If you are interested, let me know.”
After her encounter with McQueen, Sarah initially told a fellow female soldier, who knew all about McQueen, about the incident. Sarah’s confidant told investigators how he “preys on young females who are in bad financial situations and that he keeps their pictures on his cellphone.”
A pair of Army soldiers at Fort Hood wanted to report McQueen, to “end what was going on.” But they had to be careful. Gregory McQueen was a representative for his battalion’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) unit. So one of the concerned friends of Jane decided to take the complaint straight to “CID instead of my SHARP office because I was nervous about SFC McQueen finding out.”
On March 26, 2013, McQueen was probed by military investigators. He denied knowing anything about a prostitution ring and lawyered up. Multiple cellphones and his computer were confiscated as evidence. A year later formal charges were brought against McQueen for sexual abuse and conspiracy.
In May, McQueen’s record as a SHARP rep was vetted. He made no reports and was forced out of the role not because he was a sexual predator but because he was described as “inadequate” by a fellow sergeant and also “unorganized” and “did not seem to care about the mission of training Soldiers on SHARP issues.”
McQueen, a 20-year veteran who served in Afghanistan, is the second soldier to be brought to trial. Master Sergeant Brad Grimes, 37, who was a married, explosives disarming expert, had been caught attempting to sleep with one of McQueen’s prostitutes. But before he went through the act at a Killeen, Texas, hotel room, he went to buy condoms at nearby gas station, lost his nerve and booked it home. In March 2014, a jury at Fort Hood found Grimes guilty of attempted adultery. He lost a stripe and was subsequently reprimanded. Grimes told jurors, “I had a moment of weakness.”
After his arrest, McQueen denied he knew anything about a prostitution ring and even volunteered to take a polygraph. Prosecutors convinced Jane to wear a wire in an attempt to get Grimes to sing about their paid sex. He never did.
On Wednesday, McQueen took his guilty plea and avoided 40 years in prison. For the women he preyed on, however, their ordeal isn’t over yet.
Sarah said McQueen’s physical attempts to assault her left her scarred. “I’ve had dreams of the sexual assault that happened to me,” she said, referring to her graduation day on July 2012 where she was sexually assaulted. But, she added, “Instead of it being my 1st Sergeant it was SFC McQueen.
“It makes me feel like I had been sexually assaulted again.”
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