Officer Pleads Not Guilty to Harassment : Military: Navy commander faces a court-martial in July on complaints of two women subordinates.
A Navy officer stationed at Camp Pendleton as pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual harassment and will face a court-martial July 10, a military spokesman said.
Cmdr. Steven C. Tolan was transferred to Camp Pendleton from El Toro Marine Corps Air Station earlier this year after two women--a sailor and a civilian employee--filed complaints against him. Tolan is accused of indecent assault, cruelty or maltreatment of a subordinate and behavior unbecoming an officer, a spokesman said.
The formal charges were brought against Tolan at a military arraignment Wednesday. An Article 32 hearing, the military’s equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, was completed in May.
The complaints were filed while Tolan was in charge of El Toro’s Aviation Physiology Training Unit, which teaches survival and emergency techniques to Marine pilots. Tolan, an aviation physiologist, was reassigned March 2 to an administrative position at the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton.
The women accused Tolan of groping them, reading aloud from sexually explicit books and writing offensive remarks with a grease pencil on the sailor’s arm.
If found guilty, Tolan could be dismissed from the Navy, fined or jailed.
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