Stars & Stripes

9 November 2001

by Steve Liewer,

Wuerzburg bureau

Wuerzburg, Germany - A 36-year old staff sergeant cried and hugged his wife late Wednesday after a military jury acquitted him on charges of raping and sodomizing his then 14-year-old daughter last year.

The jury of two officers and four senior enlisted soldiers deliberated 80 minutes before clearing the staff sergeant of the charges. Neither he nor his family is being named in order to protect the girl's identity.

Officers and NCOs who worked with the staff sergeant, an 18-year Army veteran, portrayed him as the mainstay of the supply and services company of the 1st Infantry Division's 701st Support Battalion in Kitzingen.

Lt. Col. Stephen Walker, who worked with the staff sergeant in 1998 and 1999, described him as "outstanding, exceptional".

"He works above his pay grade ever since I've known him," added Sgt. 1st Class Dale Crewe, who had supervised the staff sergeant for the past 16 months. "He really cares about his soldiers."

The girl leveled the accusation against her father in August 2000, saying he had raped her in the living room of the family's Leighton Barracks apartment late one night as his wife and infant son slept in a nearby bedroom.

The staff sergeant did not testify at the trial, but his wife of 15 years said he did not learn that his ex-wife, who lives in Alaska, had given birth to the girl until his daughter was 9 years old. His wife said he was thrilled to learn he had a daughter, and he wrote her letters and bought her gifts when he found out.

According to testimony, in the summer of 1999, when the girl was 13, she accused her mother's boyfriend of raping her. The boyfriend was not prosecuted, but the mother begged the staff sergeant to let her live with him in Germany. He agreed.

The soldier's wife said the girl caused problems almost as soon as she arrived. She resisted discipline, the woman testified, and constantly asked to go back to her mother.

Three months after her arrival in Germany, the girl acknowledged, she ran away from home and had an affair with a married GI in the 1st ID. That soldier was prosecuted for rape and remains in the brig.

Still, the staff sergeant and his wife resisted sending the girl back to Alaska. 1st Sgt. Jeffrey Carraux, a longtime friend of the soldier's, said he sought Carraux's advice about his rebellious daughter.

"I told him he should keep his daughter here," Carraux testified. "It appeared she didn't have a real good family situation in the States and that he shouldn't give up on her."

The girl testified that, on the night of Aug. 11, 2000, she and her father had been talking on the phone with his friend about sex. Afterwards, she went to her room, pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt, and went to bed.

A short while later, she said, he came into her room and began fondling her. She said he made her go downstairs to the couch, had sex with her and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

The following evening, she told a friend, 17-year-old Mallory Holloway, about the alleged rape. Holloway encouraged her to report the incident, but the girl refused.

Holloway testified that the girl told her a different story. She said the girl alleged her father covered her mouth, held her hands, and raped her in her bed.

Later, Holloway and her friends came to doubt the girl's story. "I don't feel she was truthful at all," she said. "Many girls didn't find her truthful."

Four days after the alleged rape, the girl decided to report the incident, after discussing it with her grandmother. A medical examination revealed no evidence of attack.

But the girl did produce the boxer shorts and T-shirt she claimed to have been wearing that night.

Ralph Yates, a forensic serologist with the Army's Criminal Investigations Laboratory, said stains on both items of clothing showed evidence of DNA from both the girl and the father.

Prosecutors said that proved the girl was telling the truth. "What the girl has given us is a logical, consistent, believable allegation of rape," said Capt. Gregory Kelch, the military prosecutor.

Defense attorneys though, pointed to the stepmother's statement that the boxer shorts actually belonged to the staff sergeant. She testified he had been wearing them at the time the couple had sex the night following the alleged attack.

DAVID COURT, the soldier's civilian attorney, said DNA could have come from sweat or saliva, or could have transferred from other clothes in a laundry bag.

He also hammered on the girl's troubled history and her reputation for lying. "She is a walking lack of credibility," he said. "She doesn't care about anybody but [herself]. She got what she wants out of this."