Woman Officer in Tailhook Incident Files Suit

The female Navy lieutenant whose complaints of sexual assaults at the 1991 Tailhook Assn. convention helped launch three military investigations filed a lawsuit Thursday against the organization and the Las Vegas Hilton.

Lt. Paula Coughlin, a helicopter pilot, asked for unspecified damages in the lawsuit. More than 25 women, at least half of them Navy officers, charged that they were sexually assaulted in the hallway of the Las Vegas hotel by drunk aviators on Sept. 7, 1991.

Coughlin, 31, is the first member of the military to file suit in the case. At least four civilians who said they were groped, fondled and showered with beer by drunk Navy, Marine, Air Force and Australian aviators have sued the Tailhook Assn. and the hotel, seeking millions of dollars in damages.

Spokesmen for the San Diego-based Tailhook Assn. and the hotel declined to comment on the latest lawsuit.

The lieutenant’s attorney, Nancy L. Stagg of San Diego, said the association and the hotel were negligent in allowing the attacks to occur. The lawsuit also alleges that Coughlin suffered emotional distress as a result of the assaults.

Coughlin did not appear at the federal courthouse in Las Vegas, where the lawsuit was filed, and was unavailable for comment, Stagg said.

The Pentagon inspector general’s office is expected to release a report on its investigation of the Tailhook incident next month. The furor raised by the scandal--fed by charges that two earlier Navy investigations were a whitewash--led to the resignation of Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett.

In addition, four admirals were fired or forced to retire for failing to act on Coughlin’s complaint or covering up details of the assaults. Coughlin was an aide to Adm. John W. Snyder Jr. at the time of the incident.

Snyder, who attended the convention, was fired as commander of the Patuxent River Naval Air Test Center in Maryland last summer for failing to act on Coughlin’s complaint.

According to Coughlin, Snyder responded to her complaint by telling her “that’s what you get when you go on the third floor of a hotel with a bunch of drunk aviators.”

Stagg said the lieutenant was at the convention because “her job was to go where he (Snyder) goes.” Her boss was not present during her assault.

Navy sources said the Pentagon report is expected to recommend courts-martial for 30 to 40 officers, including as many as 10 admirals.