Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 18, 1993 TAG: 9308180147
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The testimony by Navy Lt. Paula Coughlin demonstrated the difficulty faced by the Navy and Marine Corps as they seek to find and punish those responsible for the assaults and misconduct at the 1991 convention of naval aviators in Las Vegas.
Marine Capt. Gregory J. Bonam, 30, appeared at the hearing at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia Tuesday to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to court-martial him based on Coughlin's identification.
So far, only Bonam and two Navy officers face formal charges of assault stemming from the episode, despite a formal Pentagon report referring the names of 140 officers for further investigation.
Coughlin stuck firmly to her conviction that Bonam was the man who assaulted her. She recalled, among other things, his arresting "light-colored" eyes, angular features and distinctive coffee-colored complexion.
But no witnesses stepped forward to corroborate Coughlin's memory, and Bonam's civilian defense attorney, Patrick J. Mackrell, scored a number of critical points. He established, for example, that in reviewing photographs several months after the September 1991 episode, Coughlin tentatively identified a Marine lance corporal - who was not present at Tailhook - as the man who attacked her.
Only later did Coughlin identify Bonam from photographs and, subsequently, through two-way glass in a lineup at Camp Lejeune, N.C. Even then, however, she acknowledged telling investigators at the time, "What is bothering me, I have this minor shadow of doubt. . . . I remember him being larger. He weighed more."
Mackrell did not dispute Coughlin's description of being grabbed and fondled by drunken Navy and Marine aviators in the Las Vegas Hilton, scene of the now infamous Tailhook convention. He suggested Coughlin had been coaxed into naming Bonam by overzealous Navy investigators who withheld evidence that could have exonerated his client.
The case against Bonam, Mackrell said, "shouldn't go on. No human being deserves to be barbecued for a year and a half. Take a cloud off this young man's life."
Bonam, whose looks and build are the stuff of Marine Corps recruiting posters, was described by comrades as an exemplary officer and a regular at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Meridian, Miss., where he is based.
Adding to the sympathetic portrait, Bonam discovered several months after the Tailhook convention that he had lymphoma of the spine, a form of cancer for which he underwent long treatment last year. He since has received medical clearance to fly again, though his duties are on hold pending the outcome of the legal action.
Coughlin has shared her account of her ordeal with investigators and several news organizations, but had not formally testified until Tuesday.
Leaning forward in the wooden witness chair, occasionally kneading her palms as she spoke, Coughlin testified of attending a banquet on the convention's last night, then returning to her hotel to change into her outfit for the evening: denim skirt, black sleeveless tank top and ankle-height cowboy boots.
She said that later, in a third-floor hallway, she encountered a "gantlet" of jeering aviators. One grabbed her buttocks from behind hard enough to lift her off the ground, then reached over her shoulders and slid his hands "inside my blouse."
"Skin to skin?" asked the Marine Corps prosecutor, Maj. Philip A. Seymour. "Yes," Coughlin replied.
Coughlin said she immediately whirled to face the man and exploded, "What the [expletive] do you think you're doing?"
It was then, she said, that she got a good look at his face and build. Asked by the Seymour to identify the man, she looked at Bonam and pointed.
But Mackrell, the defense attorney, established that Coughlin had arrived at her identification by a circuitous route. In November 1991, she had examined a lineup of photographs supplied by the Naval Investigative Service, pointed to one and said, "That looks exactly like him. If that's not him it's his brother."
Coughlin acknowledged that upon learning that man was a photo lab technician at Quantico who had not attended Tailhook, she contacted one of the NIS agents and said, "I hear I picked the wrong one."
In January, Coughlin picked Bonam from a photograph and, a week later, out of the lineup at Camp Lejeune. Mackrell said the NIS had prejudiced her choice in the physical lineup by telling her in advance that the man in the photograph was a Marine aviator who had attended Tailhook.
Coughlin testified that the man who assaulted her was wearing a burnt-orange T-shirt and she could not recall anything else distinctive about his dress. Mackrell then introduced a photograph of Bonam taken the night of the assault showing him in a green shirt.
Mackrell noted the NIS had discovered that photograph but had not made it available to Coughlin until after she had identified Bonam. Mackrell said that lapse constituted "outrageous conduct" by the naval investigators.
Bonam, speaking with reporters after the hearing, suggested the episode had been overblown by media reports. "They make it sound like it was a big drunken orgy. To the best of my knowledge, it wasn't," said Bonam, who testified earlier that he spent most of the evening chatting with friends and drank only "two or three" beers.
by CNB