Accuser Ends Up Facing Charge in Navy Probe

An investigation into sexual harassment allegations at a Navy air squadron at Point Mugu has ended with no charges filed against the accused male officers, but an assault charge lodged against a woman who broke an investigator’s foot during the probe, officials said Thursday.

Navy criminal investigators and two teams of administrative officers found nothing to back up the accusations of four women that they were harassed by fellow members of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 9, said Capt. Craig Weideman, the squadron’s commanding officer.

“All of the allegations originated from one of these four individuals,” Weideman said. “I have found no substantiating evidence that there was indecent assault or sexual harassment.”

But Weideman said he has decided to pursue criminal assault charges against one of the accusers. The woman flew into a rage while being re-interviewed by criminal investigators and during the struggle fractured a bone in an agent’s foot, authorities said.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the commanding officer makes the decision whether to pursue criminal charges.

“She has done some things wrong, physical assault,” Weideman said. “The Navy cannot send a message of letting people walk away from things like that. The charges have been referred to a legal court-martial.”

The woman’s Navy-appointed defense counsel, Lt. Adam Paul Stoffa, declined to comment on specific charges but said: “The manner in which these young ladies have been treated is very interesting.”

The sexual harassment allegations surfaced at Point Mugu in early April when several women complained to a career counselor of improper sexual comments and grabbing by their senior enlisted officers in the squadron known as VX-9.

The counselor referred the matter to Navy lawyers, who called in criminal investigators.

Marilyn G. Hourican, agent-in-charge of the local office of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, said the Navy took the matter very seriously--as it has for all sexual harassment allegations since the Navy was shaken by the cover-up of the groping incidents at the infamous 1991 Tailhook Assn. convention of Navy aviators.

Investigators interviewed dozens of people at VX-9, she said, yet failed to turn up corroborating witnesses.

“Beyond the initial allegations,” Hourican said, “there was little to support what the victims said. But to be fair, usually these things don’t occur when witnesses are around.”