Tailhook Agent Removed After Pressure Claim

A Navy investigator conducting an inquiry into sexual assaults at the Tailhook convention of naval aviators in Las Vegas last year was removed from the case and disciplined after one of the principal victims complained that the man was pressuring her to date him, according to sources.

Late last year, Navy Lt. Paula Coughlin told officials at the Naval Investigative Service (NIS) that the agent assigned to her case, Laney S. Spigener, had made what appeared to be several romantic overtures. These included invitations to dinner and a drive in the country and several evening telephone calls to her house.

Coughlin told the NIS officials that she was finally moved to complain about Spigener’s behavior when he called her “Sweet cakes” while she was reviewing photographs of Navy and Marine aviators in an attempt to identify those who assaulted her on a third-floor hallway of the Las Vegas Hilton during the convention of the Tailhook Assn.

Spigener, a civilian who is assigned to the local NIS office at the Washington Navy Yard, was promptly removed from the case by the agency’s senior criminal investigator, Robert J. Powers. The agent was “disciplined” after an internal inquiry that was concluded in March, according to several sources.

A source close to the investigation characterized the episode as a case of “poor judgment” on Spigener’s part but declined to say how he was punished. Spigener did not return a phone message left at his office Wednesday afternoon.

Several Navy officials familiar with the case expressed disbelief Wednesday that the episode had occurred in the midst of perhaps the worst sexual harassment and misconduct scandal in modern military history.

“If the Naval Investigative Service doesn’t have any more sensitivity in their training when they’re dealing with sexual assault, there’s something dramatically wrong,” said Barbara S. Pope, the assistant Navy secretary for manpower, who has known of the incident for some time.