by Bill Sizemore
Nov 14, 2011
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A female sailor who worked in a support role for a Virginia Beach-based SEAL team is one of 28 plaintiffs who allege in a federal lawsuit that they were raped or sexually assaulted with virtual impunity while on military duty.
The plaintiffs - 25 women and three men from all of the services - accuse two former defense secretaries, Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, of allowing the perpetuation of a military culture in which sexual abusers go unpunished and are even promoted, while their victims are discouraged from seeking justice and subjected to harassment and retaliation when they do.
Petty Officer 1st Class Amy Lockhart alleges she was raped by a member of a Beach-based SEAL team while she was blacked out after a night of drinking with sailors during a pre-deployment training trip to California in February 2010. She also says her senior enlisted leader failed to take her accusations seriously, dismissing them with degrading, sexually charged language, including calling her a "slut."
When Lockhart pressed ahead with the rape allegation, it was investigated by the Navy and the charge was dismissed after a preliminary hearing on grounds of insufficient evidence. After a separate investigation, her senior enlisted leader, a command master chief petty officer, was stripped of his position and reassigned.
Navy SEALs - highly trained, secretive, sea-air-land commandos - are still an all-male enclave, but an increasing number of their support personnel are women.
Of the 20 women in Lockhart's SEAL support unit interviewed during the Navy's investigation of her case, half said they had experienced sexual discrimination or harassment.
Nevertheless, "there is no systematic or organizational bias against female personnel" in the unit, the investigators wrote in their report. "Unfortunately there was a clear failure of leadership in this instance."
On the investigators' recommendation, the commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare Group 2 ordered commandwide training on sexual harassment and discrimination. The master chief's treatment of Lockhart was deemed "an isolated lapse in judgment."
Unsatisfied with the Navy's handling of her case, Lockhart is now pressing her allegations in a broader forum. In September, she was added as a plaintiff in the civil lawsuit, originally filed in February in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, accusing America's top military leaders of letting sexual abuse continue unchecked in the services.
The suit was filed by Susan Burke, a Washington attorney, with assistance from the Service Women's Action Network, a national support group.
Government lawyers have moved to have the case dismissed, arguing that the courts shouldn't interfere with military command and discipline and that Rumsfeld and Gates had no personal involvement in any violation of the plaintiffs' rights.
Oral arguments are scheduled for Friday.
The case is playing out against the backdrop of a Government Accountability Office study finding that sexual harassment still occurs frequently in the military despite long-standing efforts to root it out. Alleged victims of harassment almost never formally report it, the study found, in part because they believe their complaints would not be taken seriously.
Until last year, Lockhart, 32, an information systems technician, had a blossoming 13-year Navy career marked by glowing personnel evaluations. She was named her command's Sailor of the Year in 2007 and had recently been promoted to chief petty officer.
The Virginian-Pilot normally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault but is making an exception in this case because Lockhart willingly divulged her name.
It all began to unravel on that 2010 training trip to Niland, Calif., in the San Diego area.
Lockhart acknowledges she is not blameless in the series of events that unfolded. She admits unprofessional conduct on her part, which she blames on depression and alcohol abuse for which she is now receiving treatment.
But she says there was a sharp disparity between her superiors' response to her actions and the actions of her male colleagues.
After a day of training, Lockhart went to dinner with some of her teammates, downing six or seven beers. Later, Lockhart said in an interview, she joined a party at the special-warfare compound, where there were multiple coolers full of beer. There, she drank more.
What happened next is disputed. Lockhart said she participated in a game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours," flashing her breasts after a SEAL exposed his genitals. However, witnesses who testified during the preliminary hearing said Lockhart initiated the game, and no one else played along. A fellow female sailor said Lockhart tried to persuade her to flash the group, but she refused. The SEAL Lockhart says started the game testified that Lockhart challenged him to expose himself, but he didn't.
Not long after that, an incapacitated Lockhart had to be carried to her bunk in the women's berthing area, where, she said, she has a hazy memory of another SEAL coming in and sitting on the edge of her bed.
The next morning, she awoke naked in her sleeping bag, unsure of how she got that way.
Back in Virginia a month later, she was brought before a disciplinary review board, a preliminary proceeding that can lead to a captain's mast, a form of nonjudicial punishment.
During that proceeding, she said, a member of the board told her he had a signed statement from the SEAL who came into her room, saying he had sex with her.
If that was true, she said, it was sexual assault, because she was passed out and incapable of consent.
Afterward, Lockhart said, her command master chief, who had presided over the hearing, told her the accused SEAL was a "close, personal family friend" of his - a fact she believes should have disqualified him from serving on the board. When she suggested a sexual assault had taken place, he is alleged to have replied, "Well, you showed your boobs. Isn't that consent enough?"
A week later, Lockhart filed a sexual assault complaint against the SEAL. In accordance with Navy policy, she was assigned a victim advocate, Chief Petty Officer Dena Hargrave.
In a signed statement later placed in the record, Hargrave recounted a conversation in which the command master chief called Lockhart a "slut" and said, "She shouldn't go about trying to purposely ruin someone's career because she got caught."
"I honestly didn't know what to say," Hargrave wrote.
At a captain's mast in August 2010, Lockhart was found guilty of indecent exposure as a result of the California incident.
She was also found guilty of fraternization, a military term for an improper relationship between people of differing rank. That charge stemmed from a separate sexual encounter she had with a lower-ranking sailor after her return to Virginia.
She was demoted from chief to petty officer first class and put on six months' probation.
Navy investigators determined there was insufficient evidence to support Lockhart's allegation that a SEAL exposed himself on the training trip. The SEAL was not disciplined.
Lockhart's rape allegation was dismissed at the conclusion of a daylong preliminary hearing in May. Both the presiding officer and the prosecutor recommended the dismissal, Lt. Arlo Abrahamson, a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Group 2, said in an email.
Lockhart's command master chief was given a "letter of instruction," stripped of his position and reassigned by the group commanding officer.
The letter faults him for "exceptionally poor judgment" in his handling of Lockhart's allegations.
"Comments made by you to this Sailor, and to others in reference to her, are contrary to Navy Core Values," the letter read. "You failed on multiple occasions to treat this Sailor with the basic dignity and respect every uniformed service member and civilian employee deserves."
Abrahamson said the chief's conduct was not found to be criminal, although "it at times fell well short of the minimum expectations for persons in special positions of responsibility."
He said the command is confident that Lockhart's allegations "were comprehensively, objectively, and fairly investigated."
Lockhart, who has since been transferred to a different command, said she still loves the Navy and plans to stay in the service until retirement.
"But I will never go back to special warfare because of the blatant unfair treatment," she said. "They have an arrogance about them. They think they can do anything they want."
Pilot writer Kate Wiltrout contributed to this report.
Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, [email protected]
