Woman Marine at El Toro Complains of Harassment

In what ordinarily would be a routine discharge hearing at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, the commander of an air squadron on base was accused Tuesday of intimidating defense witnesses, trumping up charges against other Marines and sexually harassing women Marines under his command.

The allegations were made against Lt. Col. Thomas F. O’Malley Jr., 44, commander of Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron (VMGR) 352, by Maj. Patrick C. Butler, the defense lawyer at the hearing.

O’Malley, who did not attend the hearing, was unavailable for comment, according to a base public affairs spokeswoman. The hearing was recessed for two weeks to allow the defense to interview more witnesses.

Butler is defending Lance Cpl. Sonia M. Kourchenko, who, according to Butler, has already admitted using marijuana while stationed at El Toro.

‘Other Than Honorable’

That admission, plus a urine test that confirmed it, led to O’Malley’s recommendation to the hearing board that Kourchenko be given an “other than honorable” discharge, the prosecutor, Capt. Kenneth B. Martin, said.

But Butler argued Tuesday that Kourchenko used marijuana, then deliberately told officers about it “out of desperation to escape (Squadron) 352’s atmosphere of sexual harassment and fear.”

Kourchenko, in an affidavit filed with the base law center last December, stated that during a meeting in O’Malley’s office about a month earlier “he repeatedly kept patting my back” and later “put his arm around my back and walked me to his door.”

“He told me that I had a lot of potential and that I should have been an officer. . . . He told me that it was too bad that I wasn’t an officer because then we could go out in town and have a few drinks. He then allowed a long silence to elapse, making it perfectly clear to me that he wanted me to accept his offer, even if I wasn’t an officer,” Kourchenko stated in the affidavit.

Military law prohibits fraternization between officers and enlisted people.

Butler offered to play a tape-recorded, sworn statement from a former woman Marine in the squadron, whom he identified as Olga Torres, that would detail her allegations of sexual harassment by O’Malley. The recording was not played Tuesday, however.

In an effort to show that sexual harassment existed in the squadron, Butler submitted two more affidavits from women Marines alleging harassment by Sgt. Maj. Lonnie Long, the senior enlisted man in the squadron. Both women--Sgt. Valerie Cruz and Sgt. Deborah Morgan--told of repeated, personal and unwelcome telephone calls by Long to their homes. Both stated that he repeatedly asked them to go drinking.

Butler said that there are usually between 600 and 700 Marines in the squadron but seldom more than 10 women. He said that the affidavits and recorded statements show that four of perhaps 10 women claim to have been sexually harassed and that “there are two more that I was not allowed to interview. There may be as many as six (who have been harassed).” He said Torres had been intimidated as well by “specious charges” once it became known to O’Malley that she was willing to testify on Kourchenko’s behalf. Prosecutor Martin said that she had been accused of mail theft but that the charges had been dropped.

Butler said the charges were leveled to “shut her up.” He charged that O’Malley has used such intimidation before.

Butler submitted an affidavit from C. P. Dennis, formerly a Marine Corps captain and O’Malley’s legal officer, that Dennis had filed last July.

Sent to Warn Witnesses

In it, Dennis alleged that he had been sent out by O’Malley to warn defense witnesses in another case that if they testified counter to O’Malley’s recommendations, they would be in for some “hard times.”

Dennis quoted O’Malley as saying: “Anybody who speaks for him (the defendant) is allowed to state what his past performance was like, but if they are asked if he should be retained or given anything but an OTH (other than honorable discharge), they’d better stand by.”

Dennis later filed a second affidavit recanting his first. But in a third affidavit, Dennis stated that he had been forced to recant because O’Malley had threatened to postpone his return to civilian life and to prosecute him for admitting he had tampered with witnesses.

In another affidavit, another former captain, Steven E. Algorri, stated that he was blackballed from flight duty because he refused to plead guilty to untrue accusations that he had used drugs. He said he later was exonerated.

But, Algorri stated, O’Malley accused him of failing to “cooperate.”

“You chose to hide behind lawyers. You chose to play an elaborate game of legal chirades (sic). So, get out of my squadron, you’ll never fly again,” O’Malley said, according to the affidavit.

Algorri stated that at O’Malley’s behest, a military physician whom Algorri had never met certified Algorri as psychologically unfit for flying duty, a report that later was expunged from the record.

“He (O’Malley) indirectly controls my access to witnesses,” Butler said.

Lt. Col. P.T. Pitterle, legal adviser to the hearing board, granted a defense request for a postponement of the proceedings. Its purpose, Pitterle said, “is to put to rest questions of whether the defense has had an opportunity to build their case.”