Navy Probe Ties Officers to Sexual Molestation

The Navy’s inspector general issued a scathing report Thursday that described in graphic detail the sexual molestation of 26 women at a 1991 convention of naval aviators, and he charged that top Navy admirals had “tacitly approved” of such activity for years.

The Naval Investigative Service said its seven-month investigation showed the women, more than half of them officers, suffered “varying degrees of sexual assaults.” The alleged misconduct occurred at a Las Vegas convention of Navy and Marine Corps aviators.

In an interview, Undersecretary of the Navy Dan Howard said no disciplinary action against senior Navy officials was contemplated. The issue, he said, is “what we should do from this point on.”

Navy investigators interviewed women who complained of being subjected to a hotel hallway “gantlet,” a nightly event that involved up to 200 men. According to one witness, the gantlet on one particular night involved 40 to 50 women and lasted two hours.

Investigators said 26 women were “sexually molested to varying degrees” and complained.

“The attacks ranged from being patted on the buttocks to having other portions of their anatomy groped and grabbed,” said the report, which included more than 2,000 pages of testimony.

When one of the females pleaded for help from a fellow officer, he grabbed her breasts, according to the testimony.

The inspector general, Rear Adm. George W. Davis, said “closing ranks and obfuscation” on the part of the officers who supposedly had knowledge of the incidents has made it impossible to know the “nature, severity and number” of incidents that occurred.

Davis’ report painted a picture of a three-day, taxpayer-subsidized convention gone wild.

The report said similar activities apparently took place at the annual conventions since 1986, all with the knowledge of senior officials.

The Tailhook Assn., which sponsored the convention, is a booster club for retired and active Navy and Marine Corp fliers. It takes its name from the hooks that snare planes landing on aircraft carriers.