Sailor Alleges Persecution at Point Mugu

Arguing that she is being punished for stepping forward with sexual harassment allegations, sailor Debbie Clark testified Monday that she was forced to sit silently for days on end in a supervisor’s office and later spent six weeks scrubbing toilets from dawn to dusk.

In her court-martial on charges of assault and unauthorized absence from base, Clark said her performance evaluations dropped dramatically, someone trashed her room and flattened one of her tires after she filed the harassment complaint in February.

She also testified that she overheard a telltale comment from one officer who sought to reassure two male supervisors who were accused of groping and making lewd comments to other women at the Point Mugu Navy base.

“I heard him tell them not to worry, they were going to take us down one by one,” she told a Navy judge.

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Clark’s testimony came as her attorney argued that the charges against her should be dropped because she is being vindictively prosecuted by the commanders of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 9, known as VX-9.

“The public is getting a bird’s-eye view of a command that is knocking them down one at a time,” argued Lt. Adam Paul Stoffa, Clark’s defense attorney. He urged the judge to dismiss the charges or bounce the court-martial to a different location to ensure a fair trial.

Capt. Roger A. Smith, presiding as a Navy judge, denied both requests without comment. The court-martial continues today in a courtroom at the Port Hueneme Navy base. The prosecution is expected to present its case this morning.

Clark is one of four women who came forward earlier this year with sexual harassment allegations that led to a formal investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service.

Although the investigation ended with no formal charges against the men, three of the women have faced charges ranging from refusing to sign a report to talking on watch. The fourth woman was given a psychiatric evaluation and discharged from the service early on the grounds that she has a personality disorder.

Clark faces the most serious of the charges: assaulting a federal investigator and leaving the base for eight days without permission. If convicted, she faces up to six months in prison.

The Navy alleges that Clark waved her fist at two investigators who were re-interviewing her about the sexual harassment charges.

Clark, who pleaded not guilty to the charges Monday, said the investigators were talking down to her and when she got up to leave, they tried to restrain her. In the ensuing scuffle, one of the investigators ended up with a broken bone in her foot, Navy officials said.

Clark was supposed to have completed her tour of duty with the Navy on April 18 but is being held over to face these charges.

Upon learning that she would not be immediately departing, one superior officer openly expressed his delight before a roomful of personnel clerks. “I’d like to get one more crack at her,” two witnesses quoted him as saying.

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Attempting to show a pattern of unfairness, Clark’s attorney subpoenaed two other women who had filed harassment complaints but ended up being charged themselves.

Sailor Kimberly Bowles testified that she too was ordered to sit in a supervisor’s office from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. for days, apparently as punishment for coming forward with the complaint.

Sailor Amy Porretta testified that she was approached by one of her superior officers in a Point Mugu parking lot, shortly after she had lodged her harassment complaint. She testified that he delivered this warning: “I want you to know that if you come together as a group, we are going to knock you down, one by one, and you will not have a case.”

Porretta also testified that she was summoned into the office of Cmdr. Mike Sturm, the officer in charge of VX-9’s 200-member detachment at Point Mugu. Sturm cautioned her about going public with her case, she said.

“He said it would be in my best interests not to speak with the press,” she testified.