Tailhook was just the tip of the iceberg. An eight-month investigation by Russell Carollo, Jeff Nesmith and Carol Hernandez of the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News revealed that the U.S. military has shielded hundreds of sex offenders within their ranks, including child molesters.
In a series that was a 1996 Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting, the reporters told readers about:
Norman Michael Fletcher, who, as a Navy recruiter, was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Fletcher received an honorable discharge from the Navy in lieu of a trial. He now helps oversee a home for unwed teen-age mothers.
Cortney A. Riley, who was accused of raping a 16-year-old girl. A witness heard the girl screaming as she was assaulted, but a panel of Riley's Navy co-workers concluded that she "wanted sex." Six months later, Riley raped and choked a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint.
Christopher Matthews, who was charged with two rapes. At trial time, the Navy claimed it could not "find" the first victim. Matthews' own attorney said this was instrumental in winning his client's acquittal. It took the Dayton reporters about 15 minutes to locate the "missing" accuser using her Social Security number and a publicly available computer database.
Spotting the trend
Carollo noticed the trend of military sex offenders while researching another series titled "Prisoners on Payroll," which showed that many imprisoned servicement collect paychecks while in jail. He next turned his attention to the sexual charges.
Using FOIA requests, he obtained court martial databases from the Navy and Air Force. The Army refused to cooperate. The Coast Guard did not have a database, so Carollo built his own from Coast Guard files.
The reporters analyzed the data and found evidence of unusual judicial practices:
Hundreds of military personnel charged with sex offenses managed to get around prosecution or criminal punishment. Numerous military sex offenders returned to civilian life with clean records because the military often allows sex offenders to resign rather than face prosecution. They also found that military members who were victims of sexual assault and spoke up were frequently ostracized or fired. And, they reported, the military often refused to report criminal records to the FBI, as required.
The series, which ran in October 1995, got results.
U.S. Rep. Robert Dornan, R-Calif., requested that the Department of Defense investigate several issues the series uncovered.
A 1992 case in which two Navy sailors allegedly sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Alaska was reopened by a civilian prosecutor in Sitka, Alaska.
The Dayton Daily News filed a federal lawsuit against the Army after it refused to provide records of public courts-martial. The Army wound up giving Carollo most of the information.
Carollo said Paradox was used almost exclusively for the data analysis.
The Air Force data was very detailed and clean, Carollo said. The Navy database, on the other hand, contained many discrepancies. For example, "Memphis Naval Base" was abbreviated more than 15 different ways.
Another problem Carollo encountered with the Navy information was that defendants' names were not given. The locations of the trials, however, were in the database. The reporters managed to contact the civilian attorneys who had been involved in the various cases and were thus able to obtain the defendants' names.
Looking back, Carollo would recommend several tips for someone trying to deal with obtaining military information.
"The most important thing is to file your FOI way in advance," he said. "Give yourself four to six months." He also suggests starting off confidently and asking for the right people - the computer technicians.
"Assume there is a computer database that you're looking for," Carollo said. "Find the person who operates that system. If you deal with public affairs, you are just putting another layer in an already bureaucratic system."
Russell Carollo can be reached at (513) 225-2000, or send e-mail to russell_carollo@dni.com