Maine Sheriff Tries to Prevent Veterans From Serving Jail Time for PTSD

Oakland Army veteran’s nightmare began with sexual abuse in the military
Roxane Montgomery is trying to get her life together with help from local police, including Kennebec County Sheriff Randy Liberty.
Central Maine
BY AMY CALDER STAFF WRITER
December 4, 2014

Speaking at her parents’ home in Oakland recently, Army veteran Roxane Marie Montgomery speaks about being raped by two fellow servicemen while serving in the Persian Gulf War. She says that attack and the military’s response led to a downward spiral that involves alcohol addiction and arrests.
Staff photo by David Leaming

The pain runs deep for Army veteran Roxane Marie Montgomery.

The Oakland woman has been out of the military 19 years, but the trauma from being raped by two soldiers remains.

“I’m working at it,” she said. “It’s hard.”

Montgomery, 47, now lives day to day, plagued by an acute alcohol problem that she says was precipitated by the sexual trauma she experienced while serving in the armed forces.

She has been arrested many times for alcohol-related incidents, including driving under the influence, violating conditions of release and misuse of 911. She has been in and out of rehabilitation, sees a psychiatrist regularly and gets support from VA Healthcare Systems-Togus.

So far, nothing has worked. She does well for a while, then falls off the wagon.

Everyone who has been trying to help her — officials from the Oakland Police Department, the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office and the district attorney’s office — say she is intelligent, accomplished, personable and has great potential, but she can’t seem to move past her demons.

FRIENDS WHO COUNT
Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty, who at the Kennebec County jail opened the only veterans block in a Maine jail, knows Montgomery and her situation well. He suffered military-related post traumatic stress disorder himself and was the focus of “A Matter of Duty,” an MPBN television documentary about post-traumatic stress disorder that also featured Montgomery.

Liberty said many veterans suffering from PTSD self-medicate with alcohol or opiates, have problems with anger management, become disorderly, get involved in domestic violence and commit burglaries and robberies.

Liberty and others who try to work with veterans — including courts, police, crisis workers and others — have a heightened awareness of their problems, share information and try to find alternatives when one approach does not work.

About 140,000 veterans were incarcerated in state and federal prisons as of 2004, the last year for which data was available in a 2012 report, “Healing a Broken System,” by the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance. The report said a national survey of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans found that 9 percent of respondents reported being arrested since returning from service, with the arrests more strongly linked to substance abuse and mental health conditions such as PTSD.
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