By Chris Amos - Navy Times Staff writer
Posted : March 12, 2007

Fifteen months ago, Midshipman First Class Lamar Owens was the toast of Annapolis, having rushed for three touchdowns in leading Navy to a 42-23 victory over Army. Today, Owens, 23, is known as the marquee quarterback who was charged with and later acquitted of raping a classmate. Instead of graduating last May with an economics degree, he's completed all academic requirements and being commissioned as a surface warfare officer, Owens spends his days flying a desk at the Washington Navy Yard. He draws a midshipman's pay, sometimes less than $200 per month after deductions.

And within days, even that could all come to an end.

At his court-martial, a jury acquitted Owens of rape but convicted him of two lesser counts: conduct unbecoming an officer (for having sex in the dorm) and disobeying a lawful order. The jury recommended, however, that he receive no punishment.

But based on those convictions, Vice Adm. Rodney P. Rempt recently recommended that Owens be expelled from the academy with neither a commission nor a degree. It's now up to Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter to decide his fate. The decision could come at any time.

Meanwhile, there's been a growing groundswell of support for Owens, most recently shown by Annapolis alderwoman Classie Hoyle, who presented a nonbinding resolution Feb. 26 in support of Owens to the Annapolis City Council. The council will vote on that proposal later this month. "He has paid dearly for his poor judgment," she said. "We allow people to learn from their mistakes, and you just don't shut someone off. The court-martial said he was not guilty. Let him go forward with his life."

At his court-martial, Owens admitted that he and his accuser had a brief sexual encounter but claimed it was consensual.

His accuser, who is scheduled to graduate and be commissioned in May, testified that she was too drunk to remember parts of that evening. She said that she barely knew Owens and never consented, but later she testified that it was possible she had consented to having sex while she was blacked out.

Owens, who testified that he was also drunk that night, said the two exchanged text messages before she invited him to her room. Shortly after he arrived, he said, they began having sex, but she passed out during the encounter. That's when Owens left her room, he said.

A jury eventually acquitted him of the more serious charge of rape and recommended no punishment. To some, that recommendation showed the jury's opinion of the case and its desire to allow Owens to move forward with his life and Navy career.

"If [the jury's verdict and recommendation that he not be punished] doesn't wipe the slate clean, it comes as close as you can get," said John Nolan, a 1950 Naval Academy graduate and Washington lawyer who worked on Owens' defense team.

But to Rempt, one of the convictions provided at least partial grounds for kicking Owens out. "Having been convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer as a midshipman, it is disingenuous to commission him as an ensign in the Navy," he

wrote in a recommendation to the Navy Department. "Based on his lack of suitability for commissioning, he is not eligible to graduate."

Rempt declined to be interviewed for this story.

Supporters claim Owens is being made a scapegoat in an overzealous attempt to prove the academy is serious about stamping out sexual crimes and harassment.

"Owens was acquitted of the only real charge against him," Nolan said. "They found him guilty of two charges that were added on. Neither of those charges would ever have been sufficient to have been the subject of a general court-martial without the rape charge." Owens was essentially convicted of violations to orders: one against sex in the barracks and a second to stay away from the accuser after the incident was reported.

Deborah Clark, Owens' sponsor during his time at the academy, said that in the academy's 162-year history, no other midshipman has been criminally prosecuted for having consensual sex. At the court-martial, a Naval Academy spokeswoman was unable to say how many midshipmen had been administratively punished for having sex in the dormitory but said only a few had been kicked out because of it.

Four midshipmen were granted immunity to testify at Owens' court-martial. They admitted to underage drinking, sneaking off duty to go to a party and keeping an off-campus apartment. Despite those violations of academy rules, all will be allowed to graduate and join the fleet. "Once we agree that there was no rape, then Lamar's conduct was no different than the other midshipmen who testified," Clark said. "Why is he being asked to pay a price far greater than anybody else?"

Eugene Fidell, a military law expert who teaches at American University, said that immunizing witnesses is a common tactic in criminal trials to help build cases against defendants. "You hate to do it because you are giving somebody else a free ride," he said. "But it is one of the conventional pieces of equipment in the prosecutor's tool kit."

A growing number of supporters, including several Naval Academy alumni, say that since the charges were filed against Owens last February, they have suspected that Rempt was bowing to political pressure to aggressively pursue allegations of sexual misconduct.

Pete Optekar, a 1963 Naval Academy graduate, said he was surprised to hear Rempt admit as much during a July 2006 alumni dinner at his Hayden Lake, Idaho, home. Optekar said he cornered Rempt in his backyard and asked him why he had taken the case to general court-martial despite evidence that some said was wanting. "I had to," Optekar said Rempt replied. "Pete, if I didn't, I would have the feminists and the ACLU after me."

Later that evening, Optekar said, Rempt threw his hands up and became emotional when asked whether he planned to grant Owens a commission. "I don't think so," Rempt said. "You don't know everything [about the case]." Optekar said Rempt then added that the accuser spent two days in the fetal position after the incident.

Rempt told the group he would neither graduate nor commission Owens because he was "guilty of sexual assault," Optekar said. That conversation, Optekar said, occurred after Owens had been acquitted and seven months before Rempt made his recommendation to dismiss.

Owens was never charged with sexual assault.

After hearing of Optekar's account, Reid Weingarten, Owens' lead defense lawyer, asked Rempt to recuse himself from the case because of questions about his impartiality.

Rempt did so, but only from the criminal case, an essentially meaningless act because convening authorities can only lower recommended sentences or leave them unchanged. Since the jury recommended no punishment, there was nothing Rempt could do to change Owens' criminal punishment. But he declined to recuse himself from the more significant role of judge and jury in a separate administrative hearing held at the Naval Academy, a decision that Owens supporters decried.

"If there was a concern about his independence and impartiality with regard to his reviewing the courts-martial, how could there not be a concern about his further consideration of administrative aspects of the case?" Nolan asked.

"I don't think Rempt should have functioned in any aspect of this case," said Fidell, the military law expert. "It's problematic." Rempt's decision, he wrote, was based on three other factors: pornographic materials found on Owens' computer, the 185 demerits he accumulated while at the academy and his poor aptitude during the semester after he was charged with rape.

Clark said the pornography charge was overblown. And even if Owens did download pornography, she added, he would hardly be the first midshipman to have done so.

Nolan scoffed at the demerits. "One hundred eighty-five demerits are approximately half the number allowed," he said. "We are talking about 50 demerits per year. That's very modest. To say that 185 demerits would call for seriously considering dismissal is a gross exaggeration." Clark said Owens had consistently received B's and C's before he was charged with rape. The F he received came after he was charged.

Nolan said the seriousness of the charges would affect any 22-year-old. "He was potentially facing life imprisonment," he said. "That is a very serious thing."

A retired Navy officer said Rempt was offering up Owens as a sacrifice to women's rights groups. "There is a vendetta on this kid by a self-righteous, all-powerful group that thinks they are doing right, but what they are doing is a terrible disservice to [Owens} and to the Naval Academy," said retired Cmdr. Gerald Atkinson, who has written opinion pieces in support of Owens.

Clark echoed that sentiment. "If you wanted to go after a male and you wanted to go after a football player, if you wanted to prove you were tough on this stuff, don't you think the quarterback of the football team is a great way to make an example?" Clark asked.

Nolan said the Navy would be the biggest loser if Rempt's recommendation is not overturned. "I think the Naval Academy does a good job of producing leaders but only rarely does it produce someone with the potential for leadership that Lamar Owens has," he said. "He has all the essential qualities for leadership. He has demonstrated that over and again."

Optekar agreed, saying that Owens was a powerful example to young men, especially young black men. "This is the kind of man you can aspire to be," he said. "The admiral has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at him, and through it all, he's had a calm and a presence about him."

Owens' supporters are reluctant to discuss race as an issue in the case, even though Owens is black and his accuser is white. But eight years ago, another midshipman, Michael Pilson, was dismissed from the academy after a court martial acquitted him of raping a white female midshipman. In that case, as in the Owens case, Pilson testified that sex was consensual. Several midshipmen testified on his behalf, including one woman who said she saw the accuser climb back into bed with Pilson the following morning wearing only a bra and panties. In that case, as in the Owens case, the female midshipman was also allowed to graduate and be commissioned.

Atkinson said Pilson, who could not be reached for comment, was sent away quickly because he was not as prominent as Owens. "He wasn't a star quarterback and he didn't have anybody behind him like Owens did," he said.

Both Optekar and Atkinson say the way the academy has treated Owens will make it harder to attract high quality black recruits in future years. "If this kid gets hung, it will be hard for parents of black kids, particularly high-profile black kids, to send their kids to the academy," Atkinson said.

Clark said that if the Navy upholds Rempt's recommendation, Owens will have to attend another college for as many as two years because most schools limit the number of transfer credits they accept. And if Rempt's recommendation that he not reimburse the federal government for the $130,000 cost of his education is overturned, Owens could be forced to begin making payments on that debt. "Do you know how much money the Naval Academy makes from one Army Navy game?" Clark asked. Owens was selected most valuable player of the 2005 Army-Navy game.

"This is a travesty," said Jack Shehan, a 1952 academy alum. "Bull Halsey must be spinning in his grave."

The questions are posed by supporters of Midshipman Owens, some of whom were in the court room during the hearings and court martial proceedings. Midshipman Owens was fraudulently accused and charged of rape involving brief consensual sex with Midshipman Kim Koss in her room at Bancroft Hall during January 2006. He was tried and found NOT GUILTY by the military jury and an impartial Reviewing Authority, VADM Paul Sullivan, Commander Naval Sea Systems Command, each of whom recommended NO PUNISHMENT for two peripheral charges to the rape charge. Without the rape charge, these peripheral charges would not have existed. Nevertheless, unless these charges are dismissed under a review by the Secretary of the Navy, they will tarnish Midshipman Owens' future as felonies with their attendant consequences.
     Truth and justice in this case demand answers to these twenty questions. The answers will conclusively reveal that Midshipman Lamar Owens is suffering under an old fashioned early-20th-century low-tech lynching by a vindictive, arrogant agent of the Looming American Matriarchy, VADM Rodney P. Rempt.

The questions are:
1. How did Lamar Owens select Midshipman Koss's room for entry at 0348 on that Saturday morning, who met him at the door, and who invited him into that room?
2. How did Midshipman Lamar Owens get into the upper bunk of a resisting female? (Especially if her roommate was 8 feet away and asleep?)
3. After the incident, why did Midshipman Koss call her boyfriend and awake her roommate for a lengthy conference about what we all will do now?
4. Why did Midshipman Koss never personally report the incident to her chain-of-command?
5. Why was the incident still not reported three days later to the command authorities?
6. Why was a Women's Advocacy Organization the first to hear of the alleged incident by the Accuser?
7. Why was the Women's Advocacy Organization the tool used to report the alleged incident to USNA authorities, to insist on negotiating "Blanket Immunity" for the Accuser, and for her two accomplices (not direct participants), prior to even revealing who the alleged victim was in this issue?
8. Why was Immunity for the three female Midshipmen witnesses so critical to the overall issue of Rape?
9.  Once reported to authorities, why did the NCIS Rape Kit Analysis Profile report no evidence of Rape?
10. Why did the same Rape Kit Analysis Profile find no evidence of DNA from Lamar Owens at the scene, on the alleged victim, or in her bedclothes?
11. Why did the same NCIS Rape Kit Analysis Profile find traces of semen from two other males in her bedclothes at the scene? (Why was this fact not disclosed to the Accused Defense Team?)
12. Why did NCIS show such disparity in impounding the computers from the Accused and the Accuser (30 additional days given to the Accuser-30 days difference allowed the Accuser to try and sanitize her computer-31 Instant Messages to Lamar Owens - Invitation to come to her room?)?
13. Why did NCIS recommend no Courts Martial?
14. Why did ARTICLE 32 JAG Investigation recommend no Courts Martial?
15. Why did the Superintendent of the Naval Academy say, "We had to Court Martial him! We would have been crucified by all the women's advocacy groups!"?
16. Why did the Accused say under oath that she hardly knew the Accused (31 e-mails)?
17. Why were the written results of the NCIS "hard drive analysis from the Accuser and the Accused not made available to the Accused Defense Team until the day before the trial ended? (Previously the Prosecutor said that the analysis showed "No Evidence of any e-mail activity!"  However, the attempted erasure of messages disclosed the number of messages, addresses, and partial content from her hard drive.  Owens hard drive confirmed that he received an IM from the Accuser at 0325 AM on the date of the incident.).
18. Why did the Military Judge caution the Accuser about Perjury, when she had started to testify that she was raped?  (Koss, after being counseled, then said under oath that she thought she was raped-but never testified under oath that she was raped).
19. Given the Commandant of Midshipmen's statement [1] in a press release, why was Midshipman Kim Koss appointed to a responsible leadership position by the new female Commandant of Midshipmen? (Being disciplined administratively is not consistent with the Blanket Immunity given Midn..Koss during the trial, and should have eliminated privilege and rank assignments for her thereafter).
20. Why did the Jury at the General Courts Martial and VADM Paul Sullivan, a reviewing authority, recommend "NO PUNISHEMNT" for the two peripheral infractions which would be held as felonies under VADM Rempt's recommendations if not expunged from the record by SecNav?
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These Mids. will be disciplined administratively and allowed to graduate and become commissioned officers, testified Lt. Cmdr. Jennifer Roper, Academy JAG. The Blanket Immunity group of B-Girls, disclosed engaging in underage drinking, drinking & drugs, drinking in the dormitory, maintaining an off-campus house for partying, AWOL after hours, again, to drink, and (for the Accuser) abandoning her guard post to attend a drinking party in Bancroft Hall. Witnesses for the Defense Team also gave affidavits (not admissible as evidence in the GCM due to the 'Shield Law') that the Accuser had previously had sex with them in Bancroft Hall (witnesses have since graduated). The Accuser has a reputation on the Yard for being sexually aggressive and promiscuous when intoxicated (on and off campus).

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