California IN BRIEF : SAN DIEGO : Navy Cook Convicted of Sexual Harassment

In a case that had led the Navy to order a one-day stand down to discuss the Navy’s “zero tolerance” toward sexual harassment, a chief petty officer was convicted Tuesday on five counts of indecent assault on two women sailors. George Powell, 49, a cook, was convicted in a court-martial of groping and harassing a 23-year-old petty officer while the two sat in adjoining seats on a commercial airliner. A separate count involved groping another woman sailor in the galley of a ship. Powell, who has served 14 years, could be given a bad-conduct discharge and six months in the brig when the military judge makes his decision on punishment Wednesday. Powell blamed the incident on his alcoholism. When word of the incident became public in November, the Navy ordered that all personnel take a day from their regular duties to discuss the need to eliminate sexual harassment in the service, still reeling from the Tailhook convention scandal in 1991. A similar stand down was ordered in 1992, in response to Tailhook.