Army Team Probes Child Abuse Charges

Sixteen special Pentagon investigators, prompted by a rash of child abuse cases, began an inquiry Thursday that will eventually include all of the Army’s 289 day-care centers on military bases around the world.

The extensive investigation began at the Presidio, 6th Army Headquarters, where a former Southern Baptist minister is accused of molesting 10 of at least 58 boys and girls believed to have been sexually abused at the base child-care center.

Army Maj. Greg Rixon, announcing the probe at the Pentagon, said there have been charges of sexual abuse at 17 Army child-care centers since 1983. More than half the cases were reported within the past year.

One of the centers, at West Point, is the subject of a $110-million lawsuit against the Army. The action was filed by 11 parents who claim their children were molested before 1984.

Presidio Is First

The Pentagon has fielded an investigating team that includes doctors, lawyers, health-care workers and child-care specialists to inspect all of the Army’s centers. Their schedule was not disclosed.

The Presidio was made the first stop “because of the significance of the various issues going on here,” spokesman Bob Mahoney said.

The San Francisco case began last November when a 3-year-old boy described sexual acts he said were performed on him at the base day-care center. The boy was under the care of Gary Hambright, 34, a former Baptist minister from Yakima, Wash., who was indicted by a federal grand jury on Sept. 30.

Hambright, who had worked at the center for 18 months, pleaded innocent to charges of molesting 10 children aged 3 to 6. His trial is scheduled for April 4.

Investigators said that about 100 children at the center were examined and at least 58 appeared to have suffered sexual abuse.

Rixon said the primary focus of the Army’s investigation will be on hiring practices.