Critics Of Legion Support For Convicted Sex Offender Call For Organization Officials To Resign

Paul Hammel, Nebraska Examiner:

November 8, 2022

LINCOLN — Critics of American Legion support of a pardon for a convicted sex offender ramped up their denunciation on Monday, calling for Legion leaders who participated to resign.

Beth Linn, a former state Legion commander from Scottsbluff, said that it was wrong for about 20 Legion members to wear their official Legion caps as a show of support at a State Board of Pardons meeting in September.

Legion caps only for official events

The caps are only intended for official Legion functions, said Linn, who served as state commander in 2016-17 and was the first woman to hold the top leadership post.

At the meeting, the Pardons Board voted 2-1 to grant a pardon to John Arias for a violent sexual assault of his estranged wife 29 years ago.

The members of the board — the governor, attorney general and secretary of state — noted the support of the Legion members (who sat as a group in the first two rows of the board’s hearing room) before granting the pardon.

Linn called the Legion display a “dangerous precedence” that swayed the vote and occurred without the knowledge of other Legion members. It should not happen again, she said.

‘Lost faith’

“We have lost faith in these leaders, and that is unacceptable,” Linn said.

According to the national Legion website, the Legion uniform cap should be worn “by its members only when in attendance at official Legion meetings or ceremonies or as official guests at patriotic or other civil functions or by individuals when officially representing The American Legion on public occasions.”

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