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by Maj. Mike Richmond
Air Force Office of Special Investigations Public Affairs
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. (AFPN) -- An airman who fled charges of committing indecent acts with children has been captured following a 13-year flight from justice.
Senior Airman Robert James Boehnlein was flown April 10 under guard from Guadalajara, Mexico, to Phoenix, where he was met by Office of Special Investigation agents and escorted to Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.
Boehnlein is being held in Luke's confinement facility while Air Force officials determine the disposition of his case.
Boehnlein disappeared from Randolph AFB, Texas, in December 1988 while criminal charges for three sex-related acts against children were pending. Shortly after his disappearance, he was placed in fugitive status, and a charge of desertion was added.
OSI Special Agent Jennifer Baker, from OSI Detachment 401 at Randolph, who has run the investigation into Boehnlein's whereabouts since February 2001, said OSI officials had been zeroing in on Boehnlein's location since September 2000. His name was discovered on a State Department passport renewal form that listed his address in the central-Mexico city of Zapopan, near Guadalajara. Baker worked with U.S. Embassy officials in Mexico, U.S. State Department officials, and other U.S. and Mexican law-enforcement personnel to narrow the search. The investigation revealed Boehnlein had applied for a permit to teach English at a school in Guadalajara. It was at the school that Boehnlein was identified on a class roster April 8, Baker said. Later that day, U.S. and Mexican officials finalized deportation plans.
Deportation, not extradition, was the legal means to remove Boehnlein from Mexico, because Mexican law's statute of limitations on the crimes he'd allegedly committed had expired, Baker said "Because extradition was off the table, we turned toward deportation and what legal means were available to make that happen," Baker said. "And that's when we uncovered some allegedly fraudulent information that he'd provided on a work-permit document that he had filed with the Mexican government."
Information was provided to Mexican officials and served as legal justification for Boehnlein's deportation, Baker said Mexican authorities and a regional security officer assigned to the U.S. State Department Diplomatic Security Service apprehended Boehnlein at the school April 9.
Hours later, the DSS officer and a Mexican police officer flew with him to Phoenix, where they turned him over to Baker and OSI Special Agents Julie Mendoza and Jac Christiansen. Mendoza and Christiansen are assigned to Det. 421 at Luke.
Special Agent Kevin Chen, assigned to OSI headquarters at Andrews AFB, Md., said Boehnlein is the 101st Air Force fugitive captured since OSI created a proactive fugitive-retrieval program in January 1995. A similar OSI deserter-apprehension program begun in February 2000 has led to the capture of 103 non-fugitive deserters. .
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