Former Naval Academy quarterback Lamar Owens Jr. walked away unpunished Friday after a two-week rape trial.
A military jury acquitted Owens Thursday night of charges he raped a 20-year-old classmate, but convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer and disobeying a lawful order.
It is now up to Naval Academy superintendent Vice Admiral Rodney Rempt to decide whether to punish Owens for violating academy rules, including prohibitions against having sex on campus.
Attorneys say the Naval Academy, long criticized for ignoring sexual assaults on campus, blundered the case, which was so wrought with holes the judge called it “anemic.”
“I think they are taking weak cases to trial for reasons that are more political than concerned with good order and discipline,” said noted military defense attorney Charles Gittins, who is representing Lt. Bryan Black, a Navy professor accused of sexual harassment, in a case this summer.
The Naval Academyhas had only one court-martial for a sexual offense from 1994 to 2004, according to a Pentagon report released last year, and, along with other service academies, it has been under sharp pressure from activists to crack down on sexual assaults.
Because there were no eyewitnesses in the alleged assault and no medical evidence of rape, the prosecution had to rely heavily on the accuser?s word ? which was routinely discredited by the defense, who characterized her as a heavy drinker with a “staggering inability to accurately report activities large and small.”
Victims? advocates said the acquittal wasn?t surprising because military law places an unrealistic burden on the prosecution. Current military law defines rape as sexual intercourse that is both forced and without consent. This makes it almost impossible to convict someone in an acquaintance rape, which occurs when the victim and assailant know each other, said Anita Sanchez, a spokeswoman for the Miles Foundation, a nonprofit that aids victims of violence in the military.
Owens and his accuser had been acquaintances since the woman started at the Academy and had a “budding flirtation.”
“These types of rapes are very difficult to prosecute in the military community,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez estimated that about 60 percent to 70 percent of rapes in the military are acquaintance date rapes and said that force isn?t always a factor.
? The Associated Press contributed to this report.
