MIssile Launch Officer Booted from Air Force

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A nuclear missile launch officer who pleaded guilty to illegal drug use has been dismissed from the Air Force and was sentenced to one month of confinement in a Montana jail.

2nd Lt. Nicole Dalmazzi of the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base said she took ecstasy pills five times between January 2013 and February 2014, in part because she was going through a divorce. Base officials said there was no indication she had used drugs while on duty.

The charges stemmed from a criminal investigation that led to the discovery last winter of a separate proficiency exam-cheating scandal that implicated nearly 100 nuclear officers at Malmstrom, near Great Falls.

Lt. Col. Lyndell Powell of Joint Lewis-McChord Air Force Base sentenced Dalmazzi on Wednesday.