Thursday, December 06, 2007

Another Naval Academy Officer/Instructor Related Court-Martial

And guess what the topic is? Yes, sex. This time it is a Chaplain accused of various sex acts committed on duty, including potential forcible (i.e. because he was a senior officer, not because physical force was involved) sex acts with Midshipman. See Brad Olson, Baltimore Sun story here. It appears CAAFlog reader David Sheldon is the Chaplain's attorney and a plea deal is in the works.

Incidentally, CAAFlog was contacted by the Sun to assist in obtaining the actual charge sheets (appropriately redacted to conceal victim names, of course). We did not make any contact with the Trial Counsel of convening authority, we just report the news, but we post the inquiry because of the news worthy result . . . the Marine Corps refused Sun writer Brad Olson's request to release the actual charge sheets, even though redacted charge sheets have commonly been released in high profile cases.

5 comments:

Jason Grover said...

No Man,
Early Bird had a Washington Post article on it as well. I am not sure if he was instructor or not (the Post article describes him as a chaplain for the Academy). Both articles also mention HIV assault charges. At the recent New Developments course down in Charlottesville, VA at the Army JAG school (I know that is not the correct name, but close enough), there was a great discussion on the concept that having unprotected sex while HIV infected may not really be aggravated assault anymore. The theory was that it may not be likely to cause death or grevious bodily harm because of the great advances in treatment of HIV and AIDS. Interesting theory, although if this case does become a guilty plea we won't get to see how it plays out here.

Mike "No Man" Navarre said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike "No Man" Navarre said...

JO'C:
Concur on the HIV issue being potentially very interesting. I just got confirmation from a Navy Times article that LCDR Lee pled guilty to the HIV charge today. See .http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/12/navy_leechaplain_guiltyplea_071206w/. I didn;t want to post anything on it until we had reliable information. Another post to follow.

So you think this is another plea deal that will be contested at the appellate level? I guess the CA's lawyers didn't go to the TJAGS New Developments course.

John O'Connor said...

No Man:

That's not me with the first post. It looks to be Jason Grover.

JO'C

Anonymous said...

In re the issue of unprotected sex while HIV infected no longer being aggravated assault. That seems unlikely or at least unwise. First, although a treatable illness, it is not curable and the treatment is difficult, costly and not without nasty side effects. Even those being treated for HIV will have damaged immune systems.

The drug "cocktails" have many problems. First, perhaps 20% of those infected by HIV cannot take the medications because of side effects, or are among those for whom the meds are not effective, or have reached a point where the meds are no longer working for them, even after changing medications. Virtually all persons with HIV face the problem of meds being ineffective and a shortened lifespan.

It remains a very serious ailment. True, it does not mean a rapid death sentence as it once did, but it is a seriously debilitating, damaging disease.