Witness Falls Short of Indicting Top Army Enlisted Man

In a case fraught with trouble, the latest witness testifying at Sergeant Major of the Army Gene C. McKinney’s sexual-misconduct hearing said Monday that she did not feel victimized by his unwanted advances and did not want to press charges. Maj. Michelle Gunzelman said she was testifying only because her superiors told her she had a duty to do so.

In another twist, attorneys for McKinney claimed that Gunzelman was testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution for what they said are felonies she admitted to conducting in the Army. The lawyers said they could not disclose whether the acts involved sexual conduct.

Gunzelman, a single woman who says McKinney twice asked her to go to bed with him and once grabbed her arm in an apparent attempt to kiss her, is the fifth woman to describe unwanted advances by the Army’s highest-ranking enlisted officer. Army prosecutors sought her testimony after none of the four original accusers provided a combination of strong testimony and personal credibility.

The purpose of the Ft. McNair hearing is to determine whether there is enough evidence to court-martial McKinney. As with his other accusers, Gunzelman’s testimony fell somewhat short of a ringing indictment of McKinney.

“I did not want to testify because I didn’t feel like a victim,” the 35-year-old major said in explaining her reluctance.

According to Gunzelman, the incidents involving McKinney took place in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1994. McKinney was stationed there as the sergeant major of the Army in Europe, and she worked in the same building. She said she considered McKinney a close friend and often confided in him when work or personal problems burdened her.

During one of their talks in his office, she testified, “The sergeant major asked me to go to bed with him.

“He said it in a lighthearted manner,” she added. “He seemed to be testing the waters.”

Gunzelman refused but, she testified, a few weeks later McKinney made the same proposition more than once without such a lighthearted tone. But “it was not a threat. He did not touch me. He did not force me to do anything. So I finished my conversation and left,” she said.

Gunzelman testified that weeks later she was talking to McKinney in the hallway outside his office when he took her arm and pulled her toward him.

“I thought he was going to kiss me and [I] pulled away,” Gunzelman said.

When McKinney’s lead attorney, Charles W. Gittins, suggested it could have been an attempted hug, Gunzelman replied: “I never had anybody hug me in that manner.”

Gunzelman said she could not remember exactly when the alleged incidents occurred, but that it must have been during spring or summertime as the leaves were green. She said she never reported the three incidents because she thought she could handle the situation herself, adding that McKinney never made any further advances.

According to her testimony, someone she told about the incidents called the Army’s sexual-harassment hotline.

Gunzelman’s reluctant testimony came with the hearing now in its seventh week with no end in sight. A sixth accuser, not yet identified by the Army, has recently stepped forward with allegations against McKinney and is expected to take the stand early next week. She alleges that McKinney grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her toward him and asked if she wanted to kiss him.