Fort Bliss soldier convicted of Pfc. Asia Graham’s rape, gets 18-year sentence

FORT BLISS, Texas -- A Fort Bliss solider was found guilty at a court martial on Friday afternoon of sexually assaulting another soldier who was found dead in her barracks late last year.

Pfc. Christian Alvarado was then sentenced to 18 years and three months in a military prison and afterwards, he will be dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army.

He had been facing multiple charges of sexual assault, aggravated assault and abusive sexual conduct involving several women.

A military judge convicted him in some of those attacks, including the high-profile assault involving Pfc. Asia Graham, but acquitted him on others.

"Once the sentencing was over my whole anxiety dropped to the bottom of me almost like I can start my grief process now," Nicole Graham, Asia's mother, told ABC-7. "Now my baby can rest in peace. I honestly think from the time she died until now she wasn't in Heaven. She was here, she wanted to see it through she wanted to give me the strength to see it through."

Graham's body was found at Fort Bliss on New Year's Eve 2020, which was a year to the day after she had first accused Alvarado of sexual assault.

Autopsy results disclosed earlier this week revealed that Graham had died of an apparent drug overdose.

"I blame myself for her death because I signed the paperwork," Nicole Graham said. "If I would have been stronger and said no, then she could have not went until she was 21. I think kids at 18 joining the military are too young to be so far away from their family. Have them closer to their family so they can still have the family support, because she needed us... she was scared and she didn't get the support from the family the way (the Army) promised me they would do."

The Alvarado verdicts were delivered on the same day that a newly-released study found Fort Bliss ranked second among all Army posts for the sexual assault risk posed for women.