Army Official’s Accuser Won’t Testify in Sex Hearing

Retired Sgt. Maj. Brenda L. Hoster, who embarrassed the Army by publicly accusing its top enlisted man of sexual harassment, is declining to testify in a pretrial hearing on the charges for fear of attacks on her reputation, according to her lawyer.

Hoster, a former aide to Army Sgt. Maj. Gene C. McKinney, is seeking to avoid attacks from defense attorneys who want to explore an allegation that she had a homosexual encounter with another soldier in the barracks during her active-duty service.

One of McKinney’s lawyers, Charles W. Gittins, denounced Hoster’s decision as ‘the worst hypocrisy I’ve ever heard” and demanded that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis J. Reimer recall Hoster to active duty so that she can be compelled to testify.

“Ms. Hoster had no trouble destroying . . . McKinney’s reputation on national TV,” Gittins said. “How come she can’t come in here and testify under oath?”

The pretrial proceeding, which began last week, is intended to determine whether the allegations against McKinney are substantial enough to merit a court-martial. Military rules allow Hoster, as a civilian, to decline to appear and to have her written statements to investigators speak for her. The Army can compel her to testify if the case reaches the court-martial stage, as many observers expect, but the scope of questioning would be more limited.

Hoster, who formerly worked for McKinney as a public-relations aide, leaked her story to a newspaper last February because, she said, she was angry that the Army was overlooking sexual harassment at the top even as it was prosecuting such misconduct in the ranks. At the time, McKinney was a member of a high-level panel looking into sexual misconduct.

Hoster has said McKinney touched her and pressured her repeatedly for sex. Three other women also have accused him of sexual misconduct, resulting in 18 preliminary charges against McKinney, a 29-year Army veteran. McKinney denies all charges, saying he has been singled out because he is black and his accusers are white.

The pretrial hearing heard testimony last week from a 25-year-old sergeant who contended that McKinney sexually assaulted her in his home last Oct. 30. Another soldier testified McKinney pressured her for sex, then tried to get her to lie about it to investigators.

On Monday, Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Johanna Vinson testified that McKinney began pressuring her for sex within a day after they met at a conference last August.

Col. Michael Child, the government’s chief attorney in the case, said during Monday’s hearing that Hoster’s lawyer, Susan Barnes, had written him in a letter that her client does not believe the proceeding “sufficiently protects those who come before it.”

The allegation of a homosexual encounter involving Hoster surfaced last March in a sworn statement volunteered to Army investigators by retired Sgt. Maj. Elizabeth D. McCullum, who said she saw Hoster and her roommate at Fort Bliss, Texas, having sex.

Barnes has said the issue should not be raised and has denied that Hoster is a lesbian. She vowed that her client was “not going to become a freak in [an Army] sideshow.”