CAMBRIDGE — Jacob Wulfson, a 32-year-old U.S. Air Force captain, was convicted by a U.S. military court at RAF Lakenheath in April of strangling his intimate partner Sarah Steele during an assault that occurred in Cambridge in late 2023. He received a sentence of six months in a corrections facility and was dismissed from the Air Force.

Wulfson was found not guilty of sexual assault by the same military court. The court martial was heard at RAF Lakenheath in west Suffolk. The sentence was handed down by an all-male panel of Air Force officers.

American military police took over the case following the assault. Sarah Steele, a British academic who met Wulfson on a dating app, waived her anonymity to discuss her experience.

UK law enforcement maintains primary jurisdiction over crimes that occur outside U.S. bases when military personnel are off duty. The UK Ministry of Justice will examine the case involving Wulfson and Steele. "It's a really serious case, really," UK Justice Minister Jake Richards said. "I'm going to take it away back to the Ministry of Justice and make sure that we are looking into the details of this later."

RAF Lakenheath is the largest U.S. military base in the UK. The case involves a U.S. military court convicting a service member for an assault that took place in Cambridge, outside U.S. military jurisdiction. The involvement of the UK Ministry of Justice signals a review of how such cases are handled between the two nations' legal systems.