Liberty - 128

On liberty in Matzatlan from the Wake Island Mikey bought Colina Ojeda (prostitute) a drink. She asked to dance and her "boyfriend" Efran Minas came in and began hitting her. Mikey was pulled into a fight when he tried to defend Colina. The shore patrol was called and when Minas dies Mikey was charged. Lt Ferrari (JAG in San Diego) offered 3 yrs negligent homicide before Mikey was assigned an attorney. H asked for the assignment after C denied Bs request. C relented to H that B take 2nd chair but said "keep him out of trouble." Ferrari maligned and baited both B and H over their handling BBs case. "Like father like son," he said. Capt O'Byrne was determined to make an example out of Mike. BB offered his help but H turned him down as having nothing to offer but bad advice. Ferrari slammed Mike hard during cross examination and brought up his father beating his mother. He got Mikey to say that he had wanted to kill his father back then. Colina and Santos Ramirez were Ferrari's witnesses and completely lied on the stand. Mikey was found guilty but when B saw his watch that had broken at the beginning of the fight he noticed that the shore patrol had been called 5 minutes before the fight started. Gunny & H found Hector Valdez a fisherman who had gotten a settlement of $1,000 6 mos prior when "beaten up" by another sailor. They got Valdez to admit that Ramirez had paid him $100 to start a fight with a sailor then they had beaten him up to make it look "real." B found that Colina was really Ramirez's girlfriend. They pulled a "sting" where gunny faked shooting BB to convince Colina that her life was in danger from Ramirez. She exonerated Mikey; but he was assigned to work during the next 6 shore leaves for fighting.

M was tricked into defending Sgt Joe Dutch an "official" marine mascot bulldog who impregnated a Borzoi while UA. M held a hearing and convinced the XO not to "discharge" Butch but to allow him to go to boot camp for re-training. They also got him a mate so he wouldn't go UA. C was shown talking on the phone to Adm Don Guter an old friend who was the SECNAVs top troubleshooter. At the end M met Guter (the real JAG in a walk-on) who told C that they "couldn't pay him enough to be the JAG."