Anne Youderian reports:
The 4th Circuit declined to reopen the case of a former colonel in the North Carolina Army National Guard, who accused his colleagues of intercepting, reading and forwarding his emails while he was deployed in Iraq.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., held that Col. Frederick Aikens failed to establish the “extraordinary circumstances” needed for his case to be reopened.
Aikens had sued his former colleagues, Adjutant Gen. William Ingram and Lt. Col. Peter von Jess, after he was investigated for a “hostile command climate and inappropriate relations with women.”
He said the investigations were based on illegally intercepted emails, and they effectively forced him to resign.
Ingram had allegedly ordered two subordinate officers to monitor Aikens’ emails after Aikens gave von Jess a negative evaluation report.
Read more on Courthouse News.
You can read the court’s opinion here (pdf).