THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 18, 1995 TAG: 9510180363
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
A jury of senior officers grilled the Navy's former equal opportunity director on Tuesday about allegations that he sexually harassed a female lieutenant, questioning both her claims and his denials.
But Capt. Everett L. Greene, finishing a second day of testimony in his court-martial here, insisted that he'd had no improper contact with Lt. Mary E. Felix. She sought his advice and help several times in the months after she claims he was harassing her in the winter and spring of 1993, Greene pointed out.
Greene, 47, faces charges of fraternization and conduct unbecoming an officer in a case that is being closely watched by Navy women and African-Americans. The jury of five rear admirals and three captains could decide his fate as early as today, clearing him or imposing punishments as severe as imprisonment and dismissal from the service.
The case has attracted national attention on several levels. Greene and Felix were at the forefront of the Navy's effort to combat sexual harassment in the wake of the Tailhook scandal of 1991. Felix counseled callers to a sexual harassment hotline set up in late 1992; Greene was her boss.
And Greene was selected in February for promotion to rear admiral, an advance that would have made him only the eighth African-American among the Navy's 360-plus flag officers. His promotion was put on hold, and almost certainly doomed, after Felix brought formal charges last spring. He is the first officer selected for flag since World War II to go to court-martial.
In a series of questions posed for them by a military judge, the jurors on Tuesday seemed skeptical of both Greene and Felix. They inquired about Felix's claims that she'd asked him to leave her alone - he never got such a request, he said - and about why he signed some cards at notes to her with a formal ``Capt. Greene'' and others simply ``Ev.''
He made ``no conscious distinction'' between the signatures, Greene said.
The jurors also wondered why Greene, who by all accounts always paid close attention to his subordinates, did not immediately challenge Felix's assertion in June 1993 that he had ``asked her to do things that were against her religious beliefs.''
``It was a very abrupt conversation,'' Greene said. ``I really didn't get a chance'' to respond.
Greene, who also spent most of Monday afternoon on the witness stand, offered the jurors a detailed account of what he said were efforts to see Felix through medical and emotional problems that grew out of her failed romance with another naval officer.
His contacts included cards, notes and chats while jogging with Felix during their lunch hour, he said, as well as a poem in which he promised that ``whenever you need to be adored, I will be there.''
``I tried to do things to reassure her that she was a decent individual,'' Greene said. He has similarly ``mentored'' other junior officers throughout his Navy career, he said.
Felix said last week that she was troubled by the poem but tried to give Greene ``the benefit of the doubt'' after receiving it. They continued jogging together after he sent it, Greene testified, ``and there was never anything expressed to me . . . that indicated that she interpreted it in any way other than as expression to boost her morale.''
Greene said Felix approached him in February 1993 about a sexual relationship and he refused. But ``I tried to figure out how to get out of it without hurting her feelings,'' he said. They continued to work and sometimes go jogging together, he said.
Though Greene said he was unaware of office rumors about his relationship with Felix, Lt. Cmdr. Nelson C. Rosado testified that their jogging had become a subject of gossip in the equal opportunity office.
``I may have made some offhand comments'' about the pair, Rosado acknowledged. But he insisted that he never thought Greene and Felix were doing anything wrong, and sometimes told co-workers that ``we probably shouldn't have been (talking about them).''
While Greene and his lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. William Little, concentrated on attacking Felix's credibility and trying to explain Greene's contacts with her, Cmdr. Carol Cooper, the prosecutor in the case, tried to keep the jurors focused on the personal tone of his contacts with Felix.
KEYWORDS: SEXUAL HARASSMENT U.S. NAVY COURT-MARTIAL by CNB