Senate Aide Gets Probation for Sex Attack

A former high-ranking Senate aide from Alabama pleaded guilty today to a charge of aggravated sexual battery on a 20-year-old Senate intern and was placed on probation with orders to get treatment for psycho-sexual disorders.

Circuit Court Judge William L. Winston sentenced Quentin C. Crommelin Jr. to 10 years in prison, but the judge suspended the sentence, placing Crommelin on probation for five years and making mental therapy a special condition of the probation.

Crommelin, 42, a native of Wetumpka, Ala., was a top aide to conservative senators and was appointed Republican counsel for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1987 by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), a post Crommelin held until June, 1988.

‘Force, Threat, Intimidation’

He was accused of a sexual attack on the woman intern five months after he left the committee post.

Barry Heitin, an Arlington County prosecutor, told the court today that the commonwealth of Virginia was prepared to prove that Crommelin had sexual contact with the woman by “force, threat and intimidation” in his Arlington apartment on Oct. 30, 1988.

Crommelin resigned in June, 1983, as a top aide to then-Sen. John East (R-N.C.) shortly after District of Columbia authorities decided not to prosecute him after an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.

Previously, Crommelin worked as an aide to the late U.S. Sen. Jim Allen, a conservative Alabama Democrat, and former Sen. Harry F. Byrd (I-Va.).