Chaplain Found Innocent of Rape, Andrew Scutro, Navy Times, May 31, 2009

Chaplain Found Innocent of Rape

By Andrew Scutro
Navy Times
May 31, 2009

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/05/navy_dillman_plea_052909w/

Chaplain Shane Dillman.

Lt. Shane Dillman, the Navy chaplain accused of several sex-related offenses involving four female shipmates, pleaded guilty during a general court-martial beginning Tuesday in Norfolk, Va., to several lesser charges. He was found innocent of raping a female junior enlisted sailor.

Despite the dismissal of the main rape charge, two sexual assault charges regarding the same female sailor remained.

The judge, Capt. Moira Modzelewski, who found Dillman innocent of rape Thursday, began deliberating on the remaining charges Friday. The court-martial was to resume Monday, when findings and any sentencing were expected.

Dillman, most recently chaplain of the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, is defended by high-profile civilian defense lawyer Charles Gittins, a former Marine who specializes in military cases.

“If we win ... this is an adultery and fraternization case, which is [nonjudicial punishment] for officers,” Gittins said via telephone after Thursday’s court session.

Dillman, who was commissioned in 2000, also was charged with making a threat against a female sailor’s boyfriend; it was unclear whether the judge was deliberating that charge.

The rape and assault charges are based on the accusation from a female aviation boatswain’s mate airman apprentice who said Dillman had forced her into sex in late fall 2007. Navy Times is not publishing the name of the accuser because she is the alleged victim of a sexual crime.

On the first day of the proceeding, Dillman pleaded guilty to accusations that he fraternized, committed adultery or did not conduct himself as an officer and gentleman with four young female sailors when he was serving as chaplain at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and aboard the Carl Vinson.

He faces a maximum sentence of nine years’ confinement, loss of pay and privileges and dismissal from the Navy for the guilty pleas, said Lt. Cmdr. Jim Krohne, spokesman for the carrier.

Dillman’s accusers were called to testify during his Article 32 hearing in July and at a second hearing in January because of a change in military law. In July, a female corpsman testified via telephone while in Iraq about a long-term relationship she had with Dillman.

Testimony during his Article 32 hearing revealed an alleged pattern of conduct and contact involving young female sailors. Witnesses said he told stories about being involved in covert combat operations. In an unsworn statement in the courtroom in the July hearing, he claimed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, deafness in his right ear and dysfunction in his central nervous system.