THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603100079
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Navy documents indicate six or more sailors heard a junior female sailor scream and curse while being sexually assaulted by a drunken chief petty officer aboard a commercial flight from Norfolk last year, but did not act because the senior officer present appeared to be trying to handle the situation.
However, several of the sailors criticized the officer, a chaplain, for not taking more forceful action.
The accounts, included in Navy investigative documents, provided new details about the previously reported incident, and particularly about the role of the chaplain, Lt. Cmdr. Herstel Carter.
The witness statements show Carter may have tried to minimize the seriousness of the incident with the victim, contrary to what Navy officials said at the time, and with others who did intervene.
The documents also show the chaplain was seated at a table in an airport bar before the flight when the chief, George Powell, first became drunk on two beers and several double rum-and-colas. They show Carter knew Powell's long history of alcoholism, as did many other members of the Samuel Gompers traveling on the flight. Powell was cook for the Gompers, a destroyer tender.
In one statement, Lt. Brian Jay MacGowan, then assigned to a different ship, told Carter: ``I would like to trust you to make sure this situation is handled properly, but I can't do that because it seems like everyone here are friends, and are having a good time,'' according to his statement.
Last month Powell, 49, was found guilty in military court of sexual and simple assault, disobeying orders and drunk and disorderly conduct. He was ordered confined for 89 days, fined $1,500 and given a reduction in rank that will mean losing about $300 a month in pay and allowances.
The case attracted national attention, in part because it recalled the infamous 1991 Tailhook scandal in which naval officers stood by while female colleagues were sexually assaulted by aviators.
While the Powell case is nowhere near the scale of Tailhook - only one woman was assaulted - the incident prompted Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda, the chief of naval operations, to order a Navy-wide ``stand-down,'' or break from routine duties, in which all personnel would attend a workshop to review standards of conduct.
According to court testimony and the investigative statements, Powell obviously was drunk and loud when he entered the American Airlines aircraft en route from Norfolk to Oakland, Calif. Once on board, he drank champagne and several rum drinks, twice threw his cocktails at the bulkhead, used racial slurs and pushed a flight attendant who appeared to be pregnant.
During the court-martial, the victim, Angela Shanks, then 23, from Southern California, described how Powell groped her breasts and thighs and how she screamed at him to stop several times. He stopped after she slapped him, and chaplain Carter sat between them. By then, Powell also had been verbally abusive to other female sailors on board and to Carter, who had tried to calm him during his outbursts.
Shanks said in court that she had received reprisals against her since she lodged a complaint against Powell. In pretrial testimony in San Diego, she said the commanding officer of her new ship ``saw fit to announce to my entire new shipmates that I was coming aboard and they needed to watch their p's and q's.''
Shanks, Navy officials confirmed, also has received harassing phone calls at her off-base apartment. Shanks refused to be interviewed for this story. by CNB