After pleading guilty to assaulting his neighbors with a knife inside their apartment building in Okinawa, Japan, a former U. S. Department of Defense employee was recently sentenced to 5 years in federal prison.
While working for the U.S. Armed Forces as a civilian engineer at Kadena Air Force Base, Brendan Figuly was living in a multi-unit apartment building off-base in Okinawa. On April 11, Figuly, armed with a box cutter knife, entered his neighbors’ apartment while threatening to kill the landlord.
Finding his female neighbor home alone, Figuly cut her fingers with the knife and struck her in the face with a baking dish. Figuly then strangled her until she fell unconscious.
When the neighbor regained consciousness, she fled to her apartment balcony. Figuly chased after her and broke the balcony door as her husband entered the apartment.
Figuly threatened to kill the husband before attacking him with the box cutter. The husband and another neighbor eventually managed to subdue Figuly before he could cause any further harm.
On July 27, Figuly pleaded guilty to two counts of assault resulting in serious bodily injury. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Bernard Jones sentenced him to 60 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release in the Western District of Oklahoma.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The prosecution was handled by Trial Attorney Mona Sahaf of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Harley of the Western District of Oklahoma.
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