There was no apology.

"Did you have the clear intention to threaten her?" queried Army Judge Col. Andrew Glass of Sgt. 1st Class Michael Barbera during his special court-martial last Thursday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

"Yes sir," Barbera answered.

A nondescript room with only a clock on the wall behind the judge, the light yellow painted space was as spare and sparse as the line of questioning from Glass to Barbera.

Flanking Barbera were his attorneys, Mr. David Coombs and Capt. Patrick Robinson.

Sitting to the right of the defense table were trial attorneys Capt. Nicholas Hurd and Capt. Alexandra Altimas.

To Altimas' right, on the lower right hand corner of a darkened computer screen, a red light flashed every three seconds.

Sitting in the black seats on the beige carpeting behind a low partition were 15 people.

Most were soldiers and members of the press; Barbera's girl friend and parents sat in the front row.

When Glass - a court-martial judge with the 4th Military Judicial Circuit - spoke both sets of attorneys or Barbera promptly answered.

Otherwise, the courtroom was as quiet as a sheaf of legal briefs.

Barbera plead guilty to threatening the wife of a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter who was investigating Barbera's shooting of two unarmed and deaf Iraqi boys while deployed to Diyala Province with the 82nd Airborne Division in March 2007.

Barbera faced life in prison on charges that he murdered the boys. He received, however, a reprimand at Ft. Bragg in 2009 for his actions.

But Barbera's alleged actions in 2007 did not go away.

Some of the soldiers who had served with him then remained troubled by the incident.

They spoke to Carl Prine, an award-winning investigative reporter for the Pittsburg Tribune-Review.

Prine, a former marine and Iraq veteran, traveled to Iraq to interview the victims' family members.

His article, entitled "Rules of Engagement," appeared in the Pittsburgh newspaper in December 2012.

It caught the Army's eye, and it prompted a second look at Barbera's alleged actions seven years ago.

After another investigation, the Army dropped its investigation of Barbera's 2007 actions this past September.

He was transferred to Lewis-McChord for the hearing.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, commanding general, I Corps, dismissed the charges "without prejudice," meaning prosecutors retain the right to refile them.

What was not in doubt, though, was Barbera's communication of a threat to Prine's wife. 

In exchange for his guilty plea on the charge of communicating a threat, the Army dropped an obstruction of justice charge as part of a pre-trial agreement.

The communication of the threat began Oct. 3, 2011.

Calling from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on that day, Barbera told Prine's wife, "Your husband is working on a military story - something that happened in 2007. For your personal safety, I suggest you tell him he needs to stop working on the story."

At the time, Barbera was preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan.

Barbera said at his court-martial that he was "angry" when he learned of Prine's investigation of the 2007 incident.

"I got angry and I got upset. I made a hasty, bad decision," Barbera testified.

Hurd, the lead prosecutor at the hearing, countered by saying Barbera's call to Prine was not hasty, but a "serious calculated threat" because he called four times before reaching her and specifically asked if she was in fact the reporter's wife.

"Did you have a clear intention to threaten her?" asked Glass.

"Yes sir," answered Barbera.

After listening to closing arguments from both the defense and prosecution, Glass ruled.

He sentenced Barbera to a reprimand and a reduction in rank to staff sergeant and ordered him to forfeit $10,000 in pay for 10 months.

Barbera could have received a sentence of one year in jail, reduction in rank to private and a bad conduct discharge.

"They're only giving him a pathetic slap on the wrist," said Deanna Prine after the sentencing.

"I'd like to think the military upholds an ethos that we all aspire to, but this whole experience has proven me incorrect."

Staff Sgt. Barbera made no apology for his actions toward Deanna Prine during his court-martial.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review contributed to this article.