Woman in Naval Academy sex accusations challenged on inconsistencies
NBC News - The Naval Academy midshipman who accused three men of sexually assaulting her was challenged by a defense lawyer on inconsistencies between prior assertions that the men should be convicted as rapists, and her contention during Thursday’s hearing that she was not sure whether she had had sex with them.
NBC News – The Naval Academy midshipman who accused three men of sexually assaulting her was challenged by a defense lawyer on inconsistencies between prior assertions that the men should be convicted as rapists, and her contention during Thursday’s hearing that she was not sure whether she had had sex with them.
Midshipmen Tra’ves Bush, Eric Graham and Joshua Tate, each a former member of the Academy’s football team, are accused of sexually assaulting the woman after she passed out drunk on April 14, 2012 at a party at an off-campus Annapolis, Md., residence known as the Football House. At the preliminary hearing on Wednesday, the female midshipman said she remembered waking up after the party with back pain and few memories of the previous night.
On Thursday, the woman told the defense lawyer in the Article 32 hearing, Andrew Weinstein, that she was unsure “on my own accord” if the men had had sex with her, consensual or not, on the night of the alleged assault. She also told Weinstein that she would have been “almost happy if I found out nothing happened” and that she didn’t consider the men “criminals.”
The woman said she “didn’t have any factual basis for what happened” that night because she had been drinking excessively, and therefore could not definitively say whether the men assaulted her.
But Weinstein noted that statement contradicted one the woman made during an interview with CBS, when she had said the men should be “convicted for what they are, rapists.”
Despite the alleged attack occurring in April, the woman did not make her first sworn statement to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) until September 2012, something she addressed on Wednesday.
She said she “didn’t want to make it a big deal” or disappoint her mother, but felt compelled to come forward once she heard that the NCIS was targeting people she knew had not been involved.
She said she held back information, however, and told the NCIS that she did not want to cooperate completely.
On Thursday, Weinstein pressed her further and asked her why, after months of not cooperating with the NCIS, she decided not only to move forward with the investigation in January 2013 but also participate in interviews with the media, including outlets like CNN, CBS and the New York Times.
The woman said that she “didn’t have an agenda. I just wanted to tell my story,” describing two particular moments that compelled her to go public: a discussion with a victim advocate as well as an encounter with another sexual abuse victim in a bathroom.
Later, in one of the most dramatic moments of the hearing so far, Weinstein played a short recording of a phone conversation between the woman and one of the men, Tate, in which the woman asked Tate to tell investigators “that nothing happened.”
“I hate that I’m asking you to lie,” she continued. “I don’t want this to go anywhere. I really don’t.” She also told Tate she had not revealed his name to investigators.
In response to that, Tate asked why he needed to be involved, and told the woman, “This s**h ain’t cool.”
Before he had played the tape, the woman told Weinstein that neither she nor Tate wanted the investigation to go forward, which was why she asked him not to tell investigators anything.
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