THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 29, 1996 TAG: 9602290311
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: SAN DIEGO LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
A Navy cook convicted of indecent assault on an enlisted woman during a commercial airline flight from Norfolk to California was sentenced Wednesday to three months in jail and demoted.
Chief Petty Officer George Powell, 49, an acknowledged alcoholic, testified he was so drunk on the October 1995 flight that he couldn't remember anything that happened.
Powell, convicted by a military court Tuesday on five counts of indecent assault, was ordered Wednesday to spend 89 days in the brig, and reduced one step in rank, down to petty officer first class.
In addition, his base pay was ordered reduced from $2,232 a month down to $1,980.
Prosecutors had sought a demotion by two ranks, loss of two-thirds pay, the jail term and a bad conduct discharge after his release from the brig.
Powell pleaded guilty to simple assault, but the prosecutor sought a conviction on more serious indecent assault charges. Military law allows a trial to continue even after a guilty plea.
Powell was accused of groping a 23-year-old petty officer 3rd class seated next to him on an American Airlines flight to California from Norfolk, where they had attended the decommissioning of the destroyer tender Samuel Gompers.
The woman testified that she fell asleep and awoke to find Powell's hand between her legs.
One count of the indecent assault charges stemmed from accusations Powell grabbed the breast of another woman, also a petty officer 3rd class, in January 1995 as she helped prepare breakfast aboard the Samuel Gompers.
The woman testified Monday that she never reported the incident because she knew that Powell, who was drunk, was an alcoholic and she pitied him.
The case was the latest in a series of sex-related incidents involving sailors. It came four years after the Tailhook scandal in Las Vegas, where drunken Navy and Marine aviators groped and harassed women. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Petty officer Michelle Hawkins was the victim of indecent assault
committed by chief petty officer George Powell.
KEYWORDS: MILITARY TRIAL SENTENCING ASSAULT SEXUAL HARASSMENT by CNB