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 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)