Navy Accuser in Harassment Case Is Jailed

A Navy woman who complained about sexual harassment at the Point Mugu Navy base was convicted Tuesday of leaving base without authorization and of assaulting a federal investigator who questioned the accuracy of her harassment allegations.

Sailor Debbie Clark, 22, was immediately sentenced to 30 days in the brig for raising a threatening hand in an argument with an investigator over conflicting accounts of what had taken place in Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 9, often known as VX-9.

Clark never actually touched the investigator. Assault was defined in this case as simply raising a hand or pointing a finger with the intent of doing bodily harm.

“I don’t understand how this stuff escalated, but I did the best I could,” Clark told the judge in a tearful plea for mercy during the hearing at the Navy’s Seabee base in Port Hueneme. “I normally walk away from things like that.”

She said she had been under tremendous strain since raising the allegations against a supervisor.

“I wake up every morning crying,” she said. “I can’t eat and I can’t sleep.”

Clark was one of four women whose allegations of sexual groping and lewd comments by their supervisors sparked a criminal investigation into VX-9’s 200-member detachment at Point Mugu, a unit that tests missiles and other weapons used on Navy jets.

Sailor Amy Porretta, one of the women, testified as a defense witness Monday that she had been approached by a superior officer with a warning: “If you come together as a group, we are going to knock you down one by one and you will not have a case.”

In fact, the investigation led to no criminal charges against any of the men. But three of the women accusers have been slapped with various administrative or criminal charges. The fourth woman was discharged from the service after a Navy physician diagnosed her with a personality disorder.

Capt. Craig Weideman, the squadron’s commanding officer, said there has been no retribution against the women. The actions against them, he said, have come about because they have violated laws or rules, not because they came forward with sexual harassment allegations.

Porretta has been found guilty of falling asleep on watch, Navy officials said. Her punishment was to be knocked down a pay grade, but the squadron suspended her sentence provided she has no other infractions within six months.

Sailor Kimberly Bowles faces an upcoming court-martial on charges of leaving base without permission, refusing to sign a report and unauthorized use of a telephone calling card.

Sailor Jennifer Buhler was booted from the Navy last month after being diagnosed with a personality disorder--a diagnosis another psychiatrist disputed.

Of the four women, Clark faced the most serious charge: assaulting one of the Navy’s Criminal Investigative Service agents assigned to look into the case.

Special Agent Robin Flanders testified that she and another agent summoned Clark to their office for a third time in April to iron out discrepancies in the case. She said Clark was being interviewed as a victim, but her statements had some inconsistencies.

“We were trying to establish with her the importance of credibility,” Flanders said. “She became loud, argumentative and refused to answer questions.”

Flanders said that she arose from her chair to retake control of the interview and settle Clark down. That prompted Clark to get out of her chair too, and complain about Flanders pointing a finger at her.

At that moment, Clark raised a partially closed fist over her head with her index finger extended, Flanders testified. The agent said she thought she was about to be struck and so she grabbed and twisted Clark’s arm while another agent rushed in the room to forcibly sit Clark back into her chair.

Clark’s account was a bit different, saying the two women simply exchanged aggressive finger-pointing. “I got up to leave and she said I couldn’t leave,” Clark testified. “I told her I wasn’t a child and she couldn’t treat me this way.”

During the scuffle, Special Agent Dorian Sanzeri, the other agent in the room, also became involved and allegedly ended up with a broken foot. Clark was not charged in connection with that allegation, however.

Defense attorney Adam Paul Stoffa argued that his client may be guilty of “bad manners, but it is not unlawful force.” Yet prosecutor Jennifer Whitacre argued, “There is no doubt that she intended to strike Special Agent Flanders.”

A week after the scuffle, Clark was supposed to have completed her four-year stint in the Navy. She testified that she believed she had been discharged April 18, after seeing her discharge papers, her final performance evaluations and undergoing a final physical examination.

She left Point Mugu after learning about an order barring her from base.

But her superior officers said Clark failed to complete all of the proper paperwork and charged her with unauthorized absence between April 18 and April 26, the date she returned to Point Mugu to collect her belongings.

Without comment on his verdict, Navy Judge Roger A. Smith found her guilty of assault and of leaving base without authorization for eight days. He quickly sentenced her to 30 days imprisonment and knocked her down a pay grade.

“The military judge has examined all the evidence in this case and has made a decision based on his assessment of that evidence,” Weideman said in a statement. “I feel that the court’s findings and sentence were appropriate.” Given her case, Clark has very limited options for a successful appeal, Navy authorities said. She will be free to leave the Navy as soon as she serves her sentence.