DATE: Thursday, June 19, 1997               TAG: 9706190414

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A15  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT WILSON AND JoANNA DAEMMRICH, THE BALTIMORE SUN 

                                            LENGTH:   92 lines

TOP ACADEMY OFFICER UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR COVER-UPS FOCUS: WERE MIDSHIPMEN CRIMES HUSHED BY BRASS?

The Defense Department is conducting a formal inquiry into whether the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy interfered in three investigations of high-profile midshipmen crimes.

Prompted by a complaint from a disgruntled Navy investigator, the Defense Department's inspector general is examining whether Adm. Charles R. Larson exerted influence to limit the investigations and minimize publicity from student LSD use, a midshipmen-run car-theft ring and another student accused of child molestation.

In a statement Wednesday, the superintendent said he managed all cases of midshipmen wrongdoing by the book.

``The Naval Academy emphatically stands behind its handling of the three cases being reviewed by the Department of Defense inspector general and denies allegations that the cases were mishandled,'' Larson said.

``Our role in each of these investigations was proper, appropriate, and done in full cooperation with other agencies. Further comment would be inappropriate due to the ongoing nature of the inquiry.''

While the inspector general did not name Larson in a memo it sent to the academy in March announcing that it had decided to begin an investigation, sources interviewed by IG investigators say the superintendent's handling of each case is the focus of their questions.

The announcement said the investigation would center on the academy command. IG investigators are also asking questions about Capt. Joseph D. Scranton, who as staff judge advocate is the academy's lawyer.

``These cases were all adjudicated, and these guys were all found guilty and sentenced,'' said a Navy investigator, who asked to remain anonymous. ``So they were good cases in that sense.''

Larson, a four-star admiral, arrived at the academy three years ago to restore the image of the Navy's elite officer-training school after several much-publicized scandals.

A special panel that has spent six months reviewing the academy is expected to release a report Monday praising several of Larson's policies but criticizing the fiercely protective way he runs the academy.

The inquiry is the latest sign of tension between Larson and independent Navy investigators who have uncovered misconduct from drug use to pedophilia at the school.

The animosity came to a head in August when Larson failed to inform Navy investigators that first-year midshipman Diane M. Zamora confessed to her roommates that she and her fiance had murdered a former schoolmate. She was allowed to leave the academy for Texas on her own.

Last fall, Stuart Thompson, an agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, complained to Sen. Strom Thurmond, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, about Larson's alleged attempts to avoid more unwanted attention on the academy.

Thurmond's office asked the inspector general to begin an investigation. In March, the IG decided to begin examining whether academy leaders, including Larson, used ``improper command interference'' to influence Navy and civilian investigations.

The most serious accusations the IG is investigating, according to sources familiar with the probe, surround the 1995 case of Patrick Michael Chapman, a former midshipman who used to run the academy's Big Brothers & Big Sisters program.

Chapman admitted last year to sexually molesting a 13-year-old boy in suburban Dallas and is serving a four-year prison sentence.

Agents plan to travel to Texas next month to talk with prosecutors in the Chapman case as they take a second look at whether academy officials hampered the investigation of Chapman's activities with dozens of Maryland children.

Local authorities had identified one Annapolis, Md.-area boy, the 4-year-old son of a Navy officer stationed at the academy under Larson's command, who said Chapman had molested him as a preschooler.

The parents wanted to prosecute, according to Annapolis Police Officer Pete Medley, who says they changed their minds after getting ``a lot of flack about the Navy sticking together.'' Academy officials said the couple wanted to spare their son from testifying in court, and they deny pressuring the couple.

Defense Department investigators are also questioning local law enforcement officials about Larson's handling of a drug arrest in October 1995 that made national headlines.

On a spring night, undercover investigators arrested two midshipmen in a Glen Burnie, Md., motel room who tried to buy LSD from them. Within 48 hours, Larson forced 4,000 midshipmen to take urine tests.

That ended a Navy investigation into student drug use, but implicated 24 midshipmen in the buying or use of drugs. Fifteen were later expelled for drug use.

Investigators also are reviewing Larson's actions after FBI and Navy agents revealed an orchestrated interstate car-theft ring run by six former midshipmen and a civilian in 1996. The inspector general is re-examining two cases in particular - those of academy roommates Kenneth Leak and Joe L. Smith. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Adm. Charles R. Larson, superintendent of the Naval Academy, denies

any wrongdoing.

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