From this weekend's Wall Street Journal:
By James Taranto
Raymond Cromartie grew up an Army brat.
He looked up to his father, James Crp
"There's been so many people in the past — men and
women that have died in the service of our country — that I don't think I
should be sitting on my butt while they sacrifice their lives," the
23-year-old Mr. Cromartie tells me in an interview at his parents' home some 20
miles west of Gettysburg.
Trent — he goes by his middle name — received an
appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and entered in
2010.
A year later, a female cadet charged him with sex crimes.
Today his aspiration to serve is in jeopardy even though
a court-martial acquitted him.
His story illustrates both the human toll and the cost to
the country of the current moral panic over sexual assault in the military.
Mr. Cromartie learned he was a suspect late in the
afternoon on July 20, 2011 — the day after he finished his field training
exercise, a grueling three-day combat simulation in 90-degree summer heat.
His company commander told him to report immediately to
the campus military police station.
Weakened and hungry — he was still recovering from the
exertion and sleep deprivation, and he hadn't eaten dinner — he was subjected
to a 6½-hour interrogation.
* OK...
* NOTE - IF THIS "STILL RECOVERING FROM EXERTION AND
SLEEP DEPRIVATION, AND HE HADN'T EATEN DINNER" BIT IS SUPPOSED TO PULL ON
MY HEARTSTRINGS... WELL... IT DOESN'T.
The investigator, Special Agent Craig Butler, began by
telling Cromartie that he stood accused of multiple serious crimes, including
sexual assault and forcible sodomy, but withheld details of the allegations.
* OK...
* AGAIN... SOUNDS LIKE ORDINARY POLICE INVESTIGATORY/INTERIOGATION
PROCEDURE - SHAKE THE TREE AND SEE WHAT FALLS.
"I was extremely confused," Mr. Cromartie
recalls. "My mind started going a mile a minute. I was trying to figure
out where it could have even come from." Amid his discomposure, he signed
a waiver of his right to counsel.
* HE'S A BIG BOY, RIGHT? ACCEPTED TO WEST POINT?
* AGAIN... SO FAR... I'M NOT READING ANYTHING THAT SHAKES
ME UP, THAT I OBJECT TO.
(*SHRUG*)
The alleged attack turned out to have occurred during an
academy-sponsored ski trip to Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, in January 2011. The 180
cadets on the trip had been told they were permitted to drink, but only if they
were over 21 (Quebec's drinking age is 18) and only in public places like bars
and restaurants. Both those limits were widely flouted.
* AGAIN... CROMARTIE IS A BIG BOY... A LEGAL ADULT... HE
KNEW THE RISKS OF DISOBEYING.
(*SHRUG*)
The accuser would later describe the trip as "a bad
parody of 'American Pie,'" the raunchy 1999 high-school comedy.
"People were hanging out balconies and hanging around drunk all the
time," she testified. "People were also kissing and having sex in
almost every room."
* SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL! (THOUGH I WOULD
LIKE TO KNOW A BIT MORE ABOUT THIS "ACADEMY SPONSORSHIP" AND HOW THAT
WORKS...)
Mr. Cromartie calls that an overstatement — "I
wouldn't say it was a huge sex-fest" — but he agrees there was scant
supervision and widespread drinking at the hotel, including by him. He also
acknowledges a sexual "hookup" with the accuser, which occurred in the
hotel bedroom she shared with three other female cadets. But while her account
and his agree on some of the physical details, he denies her claim that he
forced himself on her.
* SO... SHE SAYS, HE SAYS. EVIDENCE - CIRCUMSTANTIAL OR
OTHERWISE?
Although the accuser waited half a year to file charges...
* BUZZ...!
...on the night of the incident she did phone Second Lt.
Scott Wright, a young Army officer she described as a family friend. After
hearing her version of events, Lt. Wright assumed the role of white knight. He
demanded that she file a formal complaint. She demurred, so the next day, over
her objection, he alerted the academy. "What that bastard did to you is
vile and unforgivable," he texted her. "You can't let this go. I did
what I had to do; what I knew in my heart to be right."
* WAS "THE ACCUSER" DRUNK - OR STONED - WHEN
SHE CALLED WRIGHT? (DOES SHE ADMIT BEING DRUNK OR STONED... DOES SHE DENY IT...
WAS SHE ASKED?)
* WHAT EXACTLY DID WRIGHT "NOTIFY THE ACADEMY"
OF EXCEPT HERESAY? WHY DIDN'T HE CALL THE HOTEL DIRECTLY... REPORT THE ALLEGED
INCIDENT TO HOTEL SECURITY... AT THE SAME TIME CALL THE LOCAL POLICE?
The officer in charge of the trip, Maj. Jonathan
Bodenhamer, summoned the accuser to his hotel room.
* OK. SO... WRIGHT'S CALL TO THE ACADEMY LED TO AN
IMMEDIATE (SAME DAY) DIRECT RESPONSE BY THIS MAJ. BODENHAMER.
"I brought her in thinking she had been raped,"
he testified. What she told him sounded more like regret than rape: "I was
very careful to look out for those words and triggers and descriptions of events
that would lead me to believe that an assault was being reported. She didn't
say he forced her, that she said 'no' or 'stop,' or that she couldn't get
away." He concluded it was a false alarm.
* AND...??? WERE EITHER "THE ACCUSER" OR CROMARTIE
DISCIPLINED FOR DISORDERLY CONDUCT... CONDUCT UNBECOMING... FOR VIOLATING ORDERS?
(AGAIN... DID EITHER "THE ACCUSER," CROMARTIE, OR BOTH ADMIT TO
ACTING AGAINST ORDERS?)
The investigation wrapped up in April 2012, 15 months
after the trip. The investigating officer, Lt. Col. Mark Visger, sent a memo to
Brig. Gen. Theodore Martin, then commandant of cadets.
"I feel that it is my duty to inform you that a
trial will be difficult and there are significant challenges to proof beyond a
reasonable doubt," Col. Visger wrote.
But he had it both ways, also finding "reasonable
grounds to support the charges and proceed to general court-martial."
* HUH...???
After multiple delays, the trial began in October 2012.
* OK... WHATEVER... CONTINUING...
If anything, Col. Visger understated the threadbareness
of the prosecution case.
Since there were no eyewitnesses to the sexual activity,
it was she-said/he-said. Because the accuser failed to report the incident
immediately, there was no physical evidence.
* AND YET... THERE WAS A TRIAL... AN ARREST, A CHARGE,
AND A TRIAL.
And the accuser's testimony diverged from that of other
witnesses.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Most notably, she testified that she was a virgin at the
time and that the alleged attack caused her to bleed profusely. "There
were four or five streaks . . . 24 inches wide, 6 inches deep blood streaks
along the side of [the] bed, which had white sheets," she testified. Her
roommates "were grossed out by it and wondered whose blood it was,"
the accuser added. "I volunteered to sleep on that bed the next
night." All three roommates testified that they never saw any blood and that
no such discussion of sleeping arrangements occurred.
(*EXHALE*)
Mr. Cromartie was acquitted of all the accuser's charges.
A few days later, Cromartie sent a brief "no-hard-feelings"
email to now First Lt. Wright, who responded with a long, effusive apology. Lt.
Wright wrote that after learning the facts of the case, "I was shocked and
appalled. I felt as though I had been used and manipulated." When he heard
of the acquittal, "I thanked God that I didn't play a part in sending an
innocent man to prison."
But Mr. Cromartie's ordeal was not over. He had fallen
into a perjury trap — ironically, as a consequence of his conscientiousness.
* OK... GO ON...
Agent Butler testified that when he interviewed Mr.
Cromartie, he had already taken the accuser's statement and "preloaded
some of the questions" for the accused. One point on which the accounts
differed was the pair's location when he touched her genitals. He said it
happened only in her bedroom; she cited multiple places in both of their
suites, which were adjacent. As Mr. Cromartie explains it to me, he became
confused by questions about his touching her while they were in particular
spots and at one point answered: "I didn't finger her." That flat
denial made it into his signed attestation, which was typed by Agent Butler and
is the only record of the interrogation.
* OK... I'M STILL READING...
Two days after that interview, Mr. Cromartie returned and
told a different agent he wanted to amend his statement. This time he
acknowledged the act he'd ended up denying earlier.
* OK... NOT QUITE SURE WHAT TO THINK... NOT A TECHNICAL
EXPERT IN CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE... CONTINUING TO READ...
The court-martial panel found him guilty of making a
false official statement — a statement that was provably untrue only because
Mr. Cromartie had taken the trouble to set the record straight.
* AGAIN... NOT CLAIMING TO BE A TECHNICAL EXPERT... BUT I
WOULD THINK IF CROMARTIE VOLUNTARILY AND PROACTIVELY REVISED HIS OWN INITIAL
STATEMENT AND NEVER LIED UNDER ACTUAL OATH BEFORE A JUDGE OR JURY...
(*SHRUG*)
The panel could have sentenced him to separation from the
academy, analogous to expulsion from a civilian college. Instead it chose a
milder punishment: a reprimand and 30 days' restriction to quarters, the Army
equivalent of house arrest.
* AND FRANKLY I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS! CROMARTIE WAS
DUMB TO WAVE HIS RIGHT TO AN ATTORNEY IN THE FIRST PLACE! THIS "SLAP ON
THE WRIST" SEEMS TO ME TO BE JUST PUNISHMENT ALONG THE LINES CROMARTIE
DESERVED.
But late last month he was separated anyway, through an
administrative action recommended by the West Point superintendent, Lt. Gen.
David Huntoon.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
* THIS DESERVES EXPLANATION... AND FRANKLY JUSTIFICATION.
Mr. Cromartie's civilian lawyer, Bill Cassara, has
appealed the conviction to the Army Judge Advocate General's office. He tells
me he's confident that West Point will readmit his client if the appeal
succeeds. It argues that Mr. Cromartie's decision to amend his statement
demonstrates that he had no intent to deceive, one of four elements that must
be proven to convict a serviceman of a false official statement.
* SOUNDS REASONABLE...
The appeal also alleges that the conviction is tainted by
both political pressure and favoritism toward the accuser, or the appearance
thereof. The legal term is unlawful command influence, or UCI.
* YES... WHAT EXACTLY DID HAPPEN TO OUR "VIRGIN ACCUSER?"
The politics of sexual assault weigh heavily on West
Point owing to a lawsuit by a former cadet who alleges an upperclassman raped
her. In April 2012, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on CNN:
"We've got to train commanders to understand that when these complaints
are brought, they've got to do their damnedest to see that these people are
brought to justice." Less than a month passed before Gen. Huntoon referred
Mr. Cromartie's case for a general court-martial. (More recently, a similar
statement by President Obama has raised military-wide concerns about UCI.
Prejudicial comments by members of Congress are no less irresponsible but do
not constitute UCI, as lawmakers are not in the chain of command.)
* THE PROBLEM IS THAT FAR TOO MANY "IN THE CHAIN OF
COMMAND" - AND I'M TALKING UNIFORMED MILITARY - ARE FAR LESS HONORABLE
THAN ONE WOULD HOPE FOR.
In addition, in October 2011 the accuser's father sent an
inflammatory three-page handwritten letter to the commandant, Gen. Martin. The
father asserted that his daughter had been "raped" and repeatedly
referred to Mr. Cromartie as a "rapist." (This was not in fact a rape
case; even the accuser said the sexual activity stopped well short of
intercourse.) The letter began "Dear Ted." The father and Gen. Martin
were classmates at the academy 30 years ago and West Point classes are famously tightknit.
* WHOA!
Perhaps the clearest indication of UCI came in April
2012, when the defense counsel asked Maj. Jeffrey Pickler, Mr. Cromartie's
company tactical officer, to write a letter attesting to the cadet's good
character. Maj. Pickler agreed, then sought advice from his superior, Lt. Col.
John Vermeesch, who discouraged him from writing the letter. Maj. Pickler
testified that Col. Vermeesch prefaced his recommendation with a pre-emptive
denial: "Just to be clear, this is not UCI."
(*SNORT*)
Although Maj. Pickler didn't write the letter...
* WHY NOT? (FEAR OF RETALIATION OR PRINCIPLE? BUT... HARD
TO BELIEVE PRINCIPLE WHEN PICKLER INITIALLY AGREED...)
...he testified as a defense witness and spoke glowingly
of Mr. Cromartie: "He strikes me as the kind of cadet who has worked
incredibly hard to get here, he is extremely mature compared to his peers and
classmates, he is hard working, and [he] possesses incredible work ethic."
That's what the Army is losing if it allows his separation to stand.
* SO... AGAIN... WHY DIDN'T PICKLER WRITE THE
LETTER...???
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
After the court-martial panel read its verdict, Mr.
Cromartie took the stand in the proceeding's sentencing phase to show remorse
for the misstatement: "I should have reviewed my statement thoroughly. I
just skimmed it and it was my fault," he testified. "I should have
asked for a lawyer."
If that is the most important lesson a young man can
learn at West Point, it is an indictment of both the academy's leadership and
the country's.
* FOLKS... AGAIN... I FEAR THAT LARGE SEGMENTS OF OUR
MILITARY INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED AND POLITICIZED. THE FACT THAT
"THE GOOD GUYS" WILL SO RARELY SPEAK OUT SHOULD TELL YOU ALL YOU NEED
TO KNOW ABOUT WHETHER MY FEARS ARE JUSTIFIED OR NOT.
* REMEMBER BENGHAZI...
