News
2006-04-29
Officer found not
guilty of assault of lesbian soldier
An Army Reserve
officer was acquitted of charges that he assaulted a
female soldier who testified that she had not wanted to file
An Army Reserve
officer was acquitted of charges that he assaulted a
female soldier who testified that she had not wanted to file
a complaint at the time because she is a lesbian.
Blair County, Pa., jurors on Thursday found Sgt.
Douglas Walters, 47, of Altoona not guilty of
aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault.
Walters was charged after police said he
assaulted the woman in his car last July. Walters told
Logan Township police in a statement that he and the
woman had had a consensual relationship for two months, the
Altoona Mirror reported in Wednesday's editions.
"What he did to the woman was not a crime if the
two consented," Walters's attorney, Norman D. Callan,
said Thursday.
Walters and the woman are still assigned to the
Army Reserve Unit 298th Maintenance Co. in Altoona.
Walters admitted violating Army regulations but
maintained that he had not broken criminal law, Callan had said.
The woman testified Tuesday that she had been
ordered by Walters to accompany him on a shopping trip
last July and that refusing the order could have led
to military discipline. The woman reported the incident
the next day to another sergeant after he noticed that she
looked depressed. A superior then told Logan Township police.
She testified that she didn't file a report
immediately because she is a lesbian. "People in the
Army don't know I dated girls," the woman testified.
"If I made waves, I was afraid I'd get discharged for it."
The "don't ask, don't tell" policy for the U.S.
military and its service academies, set by Congress
and signed by President Clinton, allows gays to serve
in the armed forces if they abstain from homosexual
activity and do not disclose their sexual orientation.
The revelation surprised some in the courtroom.
When asked by Callan why she waited until the trial to
reveal her sexual orientation, the woman replied, "You
asked, and I told."
Assistant prosecutor Ilissa Zimmerman said
Thursday that whether the relationship was consensual
appeared to be the larger issue with the jury than the
woman's sexual orientation. Messages left for officials at
the Altoona unit and at the Army Reserve's 99th
Regional Readiness Command headquarters in Coraopolis
after the verdict were not immediately returned.
Earlier Thursday, before the verdict was
announced, Army Reserve spokesman Jack Gordon in
Coraopolis told the Associated Press that the woman's
testimony would be reviewed by military officials.
Zimmerman rejected notions that the woman
concocted a story in order to get out of her military
obligations. "It would have been far too complicated
to manipulate the system that way," Zimmerman said. (AP)
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