A hearing on rape allegations against three former U.S. Naval Academy football players got underway Tuesday morning at the Washington Navy Yard, with a female midshipman facing her alleged assailants for the first time in a legal proceeding.
Each of the accused — Eric Graham of Eight Mile, Ala., Tra’ves Bush of Johnston, S.C., and Josh Tate of Nashville — appeared flanked by teams of military and civilian defense counsel.
The young woman, a junior at the time of the alleged attack, was scheduled to testify Tuesday. The Washington Post typically does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.
The hearing comes at a time when the military’s ability to police sexual violence within its ranks is under intense scrutiny.
The Naval Academy superintendent, Vice Adm. Michael Miller, agreed to charges against the football players in June. The woman’s attorney, Susan Burke, criticized the delay, saying academy officials had failed to protect the accused from intimidation by her alleged attackers and were slow to investigate. Sources familiar with the investigation said the accuser did not cooperate fully at first, which hindered the probe.
The accuser, who remains at the academy, as do Graham and Tate, did not report the alleged assault right away. However, allegations, posted by other students on social-media sites, began circulating after the party, Burke said.
The accuser went public with her allegations in the spring, days after graduation, where President Obama appeared and said perpetrators of sexual assault in the military ought to be “court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged. Period.”
One of the accused, Bush, had been scheduled to graduate, but his graduation has been delayed pending the outcome of the case. Graham was a junior and Tate was a sophomore last year.
Obama’s comments have affected military sexual-assault cases, although perhaps not the way he had intended. In June, a Navy judge in Hawaii ruled that two defendants in a sexual assault case could not be punitively discharged if found guilty because the president’s comments constituted “unlawful command influence.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has been pushing a proposal to remove authority over such cases from military command, legislation that has, so far, failed to gain enough support among military leaders and key lawmakers for passage.
At the start of Tuesday’s hearing, one of the defense lawyers, Lt. Cmdr. Angela Tang, referred to that proposal as she grilled Cmdr. Robert P. Monahan Jr., the hearing officer, on whether comments by public officials on sexual assault in the military would affect his ability to be impartial. Monahan said they would not.
The purpose of the hearing, known as an Article 32, is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant a court-martial. The hearing is expected to last through Thursday, Naval Academy spokesman John Schofield said.
Under military law, the maximum penalty for rape is life in prison without the possibility of parole and a dishonorable discharge, said Lisa Windsor, a former judge advocate general who is in private practice in Washington. The men were also charged with making false statements. The maximum penalty for that offense is five years in prison and a dishonorable discharge.
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