Travis Air Force Base Psychologist accused of rape

UPDATE
Travis AFB Psychologist Accused of Sexually Assaulting Vets Pleads Not Guilty
NBC Los Angeles May 26, 2018

Heath Sommer is accused of raping and sexually assaulting at least three patients, including Air Force veterans suffering from PTSD and who had already survived sexual assaults. "This man is a monster," Iraq War veteran Kelly Shufeldt-Rodriguez said about Sommer.

CBS
May 15, 2018

In a statement released by Travis Air Force Base, spokesperson Traci Keller confirmed that the U.S. Air force had contracted Sommer to work at the base's David Grant Medical Center, but said he was "no longer employed there."

A psychologist contracted to help trauma victims at Travis Air Force Base in California left his patients "even more traumatized" by his own alleged sexual attacks, prosecutors say. CBS Sacramento reported Monday that Dr. Heath Sommer was arrested earlier in May and entered not guilty pleas to multiple felony sexual assault and battery charges.

On Monday, prosecutors filed their official complaint against the clinical psychologist, detailing allegations that he used a technique known as exposure therapy on his patients -- inflicting the same sort of abuse on his patients that would have landed some of them in his office in the first place.

CBS Sacramento says the alleged abuse occurred between 2010 and 2016, and that Sommer faces charges including sexual battery, rape, and oral copulation. It was not clear how many alleged victims there were, or how many of them were already victims of sexual abuse before they sought treatment at the Air Force base.
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Air Force Colonel Faces Trial for Rape, Adultery and Dirty Selfie

Schriever Air Force Base colonel headed to trial on allegations of rape, adultery, dirty selfie
The Gazette
By: Tom Roeder
May 10, 2016

An evidence hearing in the case in March included a long walk through the married colonel's alleged love life, which prosecutors say included adulterous acts with a half-dozen mistresses. He's also charged with taking an obscene selfie "while in uniform and seated in his office" at Schriever, one of the military's most secure and secretive bases.

Col. Marcus Caughey will head to court-martial in August on a pile of charges, including multiple instances of adultery and a sexual assault.

(U.S. Air Force photo/Christopher DeWitt)

A Schriever Air Force Base colonel will head to court-martial in August on a pile of charges, including multiple instances of adultery and a sexual assault.

Prosecutors allege Col. Eugene Marcus Caughey's misconduct dates back to 2013. The rape allegation stems from a 2014 incident at Schriever, where prosecutors allege Caughey assaulted a woman "while holding her against the wall and floor."

The trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 8, Peterson Air force Base spokesman Steve Brady said.

Caughey, who was reassigned to Air Force Space Command headquarters pending his court-martial, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.
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Linked from Stars and Stripes

Attempted Rapist Gets 20 Years After Attacking Army Captain

Ex-Navy reservist gets 20 years for attempted rape of Army captain in Kuwait 
The Virginian-Pilot 
By Scott Daugherty 
23 hrs ago

In court Monday, the victim recalled how she told the masked man that he didn’t need to do this, that he could just leave. She said the man, later identified as Garcia, responded by trying to drag her to a bathroom stall on the other side of the trailer. She said she fought back, only to be cut several times with a box cutter.

While showering almost six years ago in Kuwait, an Army captain turned around as someone pulled back the curtain.

She recalls thinking it was a friend pulling a prank on her, but then she saw a muscular man wearing a homemade ninja mask.

Amin Jason Carl Garcia – a former Navy reservist – was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison for trying to sexually assault the woman. The sentence is on top of an earlier life-plus-30-years term he received in connection with a 2008 rape in Norfolk.

“It was a crime of barbaric, inhumane nature,” U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson said in court, adding that a review of Garcia’s life story reveals no explanation for his criminal record. “Somewhere along the way, something happened to you.”
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"Good Soldier Defense" in Military Sexual Abuse to be dumped

Senate approves McCaskill sex assault bill
Army Times
By Leo Shane III
Staff writer
March 10, 2014

The Senate on Monday finalized plans for broad reforms in how sexual assault cases are handled in the military, just days after a bitter floor fight over a larger overhaul of the entire military justice system.

The new measure, sponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., passed unanimously, disguising deep rifts within the chamber over how best to protect victims and punish sex offenders.

It halts — for now — a months-long fight between two top female Democrats in the Senate on this issue, one that McCaskill complained painted her as soft on military leaders despite her insistence on tougher rules for the services.

“The argument was posed as victims versus commanders and whose side are you on,” she told reporters last week. “It’s not that simple.”

Under the Senate-passed bill, military commanders no longer would be able to overturn jury convictions; the statute of limitations for military rapes would be erased; and victims would receive their own independent counsel in sex crimes cases.

The bill also would require civilian review if a commander declines to prosecute a sexual assault case; require dishonorable discharges for troops convicted of such crimes; and create harsh punishments for anyone who retaliates against victims who report rapes and assaults.

And it dumps the so-called “good soldier” defense, which allowed lawyers to cite service members’ past exemplary service as evidence that they would not commit violent crimes.
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Air Force Rape case going to trial despite earlier dismissal

Rape case going to trial despite earlier dismissal
Stars and Stripes
By Nancy Montgomery
Published: March 10, 2014

A rape case that was re-investigated after being dismissed by Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin last year is going to trial.

Maj. Gen. Sharon K.G. Dunbar, commander of the Air Force District of Washington, has referred rape charges against Airman 1st Class Brandon T. Wright, Lt. Col. Kenneth Hoffman, a spokesman for the command, confirmed on Monday.

Wright, accused of raping a sergeant in 2012, is charged with two specifications of rape using force, Hoffman said. No trial date has been set.

Dunbar’s decision followed a recommendation to proceed to trial from an investigating officer who presided over the second Article 32 hearing in the case in January at Andrews Air Force Base, said sources with knowledge of the case but who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss it.
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Marine rape victim attempted suicide, rapists walked away

Retired Marine Reveals Secret Suffering of Male Military Rape Victims
Daily Beast
Caitlin Dickson
February 27, 2014

Former Marine Lance Corporal Jeremiah Arbogast tried to kill himself after he watched his rapist walk free. He shared his story, Wednesday, in hopes of helping spark change within the ranks. Twenty-two veterans commit suicide everyday. Jeremiah Arbogast was almost one of them.

“Choosing death was my way of taking responsibility for my circumstances,” the former Marine Lance Corporal told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on personnel Wednesday. “I felt my death would spare my wife, daughter and myself the dishonor the rape brought upon us.”

From the wheelchair to which he has been confined ever since his self-inflicted gunshot wound left him paraplegic, the 32-year-old started the committee’s hearing on the relationship between military sexual assault, PTSD and suicide, with a heartbreaking testimony.
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UK Female soldier hung herself after rape

Female soldier hanged herself at barracks after 'Army did not charge soldiers she claimed raped her'
Inquest hears how The Royal Military Police woman complained to her mother that she was depressed after senior commanders decided not to pursue her claim
The Telegraph
By News agencies
03 Feb 2014

The mother of a female soldier found hanged at her barracks told a coroner that her daughter had become depressed after the Army decided it was not going to charge two male soldiers she alleged had raped her on a drunken night out.

Anne-Marie Ellement was found hanged on a fire escape at Bulford Barracks (INS)

Corporal Anne-Marie Ellement died just three days after her 30th birthday on October 9, 2011.
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Military looked the other way instead of pursuing rapist

Panetta: Military 'looked the other way' in Goulet case, and Santa Cruz officers paid the price
By Josh Richman
The Oakland Tribune
Published: March 8, 2013

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Some U.S. military officials "looked the other way" rather than aggressively pursuing rape charges against a sexually troubled soldier who ended up killing two Santa Cruz police officers last week, former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at the officers' funeral Thursday.

Experts say Panetta's unusually strong words — which implied that the military justice system might share some blame for the officers' deaths — highlight the ongoing push to change a military culture that has given rise to an epidemic of sexual assault.

Jeremy Goulet, whose 2006 Army court martial in Hawaii for two purported rapes of military officers ended with a plea bargain in which he accepted an "other-than-honorable" discharge, shot and killed two officers investigating a new groping accusation against Goulet on Feb. 26. Had Goulet been convicted of the two rapes, he probably would have landed in a military prison for life.
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Fort Carson soldier suspected of rape found dead

Identity of Fort Carson Soldier Found Dead At Home Released

Fort Carson soldier suspected of rape found dead
by Travis Ruiz
Posted: 03.06.2013

FORT CARSON, COLO. -- A Fort Carson solider suspected of rape was found dead on post, according to base officials.

The soldier, along with another soldier, was being investigated for a possible rape that happened over the weekend, Fort Carson officials said.
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(No relation to early report of Fort Carson Soldier killed at home.)

Veterans Say Rape Cases Mishandled

Rape is a crime. Simple. So why is it there are some believing they are above the law? Why would anyone in the military not be able to honor the law? This is the part we all need to face. They believe they can ignore it.

This attitude not only insults females in the military, it insults every female veteran slapping their service with a less than worthy middle finger. It insults every woman in this country especially women seeking protection and justice from a rapists.

Veterans Say Rape Cases Mishandled
February 15, 2011 posted by Veterans Today
WASHINGTON – A group of U.S. veterans who say they were raped and abused by their comrades want to force the Pentagon to change how it handles such cases.

More than a dozen female and two male current or former service members say servicemen get away with rape and other sexual abuse and victims are too often ordered to continue to serve alongside those they say attacked them.

Kori Cioca, 25, of Wilmington, Ohio, speaks about how she was raped while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard

In a federal class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday that names Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, they want an objective third party to handle such complaints because individual commanders have too much say in how allegations are handled.

The alleged attackers in the lawsuit include an Army criminal investigator and an Army National Guard commander. The abuse alleged ranges from obscene verbal abuse to gang rape.

In one incident, an Army Reservist says two male colleagues raped her in Iraq and videotaped the attack. She complained to authorities after the men circulated the video to colleagues. Despite being bruised from her shoulders to elbows from being held down, she says charges weren’t filed because the commander determined she “did not act like a rape victim” and “did not struggle enough” and authorities said they didn’t want to delay the scheduled return of the alleged attackers to the United States.

“The problem of rape in the military is not only service members getting raped, but it’s the entire way that the military as a whole is dealing with it,” said Panayiota Bertzikis, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and claims she was raped in 2006. “From survivors having to be involuntarily discharged from service, the constant verbal abuse, once a survivor does come forward your entire unit is known to turn their back on you. The entire culture needs to be changed.”

Although The Associated Press normally does not identify the victims of sexual assault, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit have publicly discussed the cases.

Bertzikis, 29, of Somerville, Mass., now is executive director of the Military Rape Crisis Center. She says she was raped by a Coast Guard shipmate while out on a social hike with him in Burlington, Vt. Bertzikis complained to her commanding officer, but she said authorities did not take substantial steps to investigate the matter. Instead, she said, they forced her to live on the same floor as the man she had accused and tolerated others calling her a “liar” and “whore.”
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Veterans Say Rape Cases Mishandled

And then we have this study.

Trauma increases risks for alcohol problems in women
February 14, 2011
By Jim Dryden

Young women who have experienced traumatic events are more likely to become alcohol dependent than those who have not, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Midwest Alcoholism Research Center (MARC), which is housed in the Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine.

The MARC involves collaborations among Washington University alcoholism researchers and scientists at the University of Iowa, the University of Missouri-Columbia, the Veterans Administration Palo Alto Health Care System, Arizona State University and Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Australia.

The center is preparing to host the 11th Annual Guze Symposium on Alcoholism, which this year will focus on Trauma and Alcoholism, Findings from studies published in the journals Psychological Medicine and the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs suggest that trauma is an important risk factor for alcohol problems in women.
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Trauma increases risks for alcohol problems in women

They prepare for the fact there will be traumatic events when they deploy but what they are not prepared for is being attacked by their own and then betrayed.

Women go into the military as they have since the beginning of this country, legally or disguising themselves and they will keep going into the military with the same patriotic tug of the heart as males. They will deploy into combat zones and while they are technically not supposed to be in combat roles, they are. With the kind of warfare going on as terrorist tactics remove safe zones, combat comes to them.

Why do they serve? Because they love this country and the rights that are supposed to be protected for all citizens but as they are risking their lives they discover they are sub-citizen to their commanders in the military. Rape is a crime. If these same commanders had a wife, sister or daughter raped by someone in the military or in civilian life, they would not be able to put the rapist criminal above them. So how do these same people justify it when it is a servicewoman under their command?

GOP senators voted against rape victims for contractors

This is not about an employment issue but it is about a crime against women and the attitude some men have. These people should be ashamed and the rest of the senators that voted to treat rape like a crime should be honored by all women for this.

GANG RAPE LEGISLATION NIXED BY 30 GOP'ers

DEFENSE CONTRACTORS BUY SENATE VOTES

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Is it this plain? Are the facts this clear? Did 30 Republicans vote to allow defense contractors protection if their employees are raped, drugged and imprisoned? Haliburton/KBR, the "Dick" Cheney company did exactly this, locked a rape victim in a box, drugged her and kept her prisoner.


68 Senators, every single Democrat and some Republicans, voted to allow defense contractors whose employees are sexually assaulted be taken to court. Robert Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio describe their take on opposition to the Rape Protection bill.
"I checked to make sure that the 30 Republican Senators who voted against Jamie Leigh Jones' anti-rape bill two weeks ago had wives and daughters. Most of them did. But their love for defense contractor PAC money is obviously greater than their love even for their own daughters. The Senate bill was simple to follow: if a contractor like KBR has an employee who is sexually assaulted on the job, that employee has a right to have a jury hear and decide the facts of the case. If the contractor denies the victim that right, then the U.S. government won't do business with that contractor. In 2005, Jones, a KBR employee, was gang-raped in Iraq by KBR workers. After she was gang-raped, KBR security held her prisoner inside a 5' x 6' shipping container to make sure she kept her mouth shut.
The vote to enact the bill was 68 to 30. Go to the website Republicans For Rape, and you can see the list of those 30 GOP leaders who voted against offering justice to victims like Jamie. They argued that it is too harsh to force a valued defense contractor like KBR or Haliburton to appear in front of a civil jury to face outraged and repulsed fathers, mothers, and sisters when stories like Jamie's are told. What those 30 all-male, all-Republican Senators would prefer is that Jamie and victims like her would be raped again by KBR by appearing in a closed door, secretive, arbitration hearing where no one would hear the details of the assault.
read more here
http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9224

Daily Show treats rape like a crime when some in congress didn't

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Women raped by contractors in Iraq but did you even notice this was happening? Did you know we have women in the military facing this every day? As with the view of some of the elected in congress, this is not even thought of as criminal, but a contract issue to be resolved through mediation. The women in the military do not stand a chance if no one even paid attention to this.

We are paying the contractors with our tax dollars but they get to ignore the law and then are defended by some in congress? Are you ok with this? Are any of these congressmen supported by you when they want to allow this to happen?

Pentagon opposed measure to help rape victims


By John Byrne
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 -- 8:20 am

It's not just Republican senators who oppose an amendment allowing defense contractor employees to sue over rape in US courts.

It's also the Pentagon itself.

An amendment put forth by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) sought to allow victims of rape to sue over their treatment in the US court system, after revelations that a KBR employee could only seek redress through arbitration, as outlined in her employment contract.

Thirty Republicans voted against the amendment, which passed the Senate 68-30.
read more here

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/pentagon-opposed-measure-rape-victims/

Military TRICARE not covering rape kits for victims?

Raped in the Military? You May Have to Pay for Your Own Forensic Exam Kit
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted November 11, 2008.

This outrage gives "supporting the troops" a whole new meaning.

Editor's note: a correction was made to this story since publication. The uncorrected version stated incorrectly that the military doesn't cover forensic exam kits for the 20 percent of rape victims treated on military bases.

Sarah Palin's decision not to pay for rape kits when she was mayor of Walsilla was an issue in the campaign for the White House. But allow me to introduce the large pink elephant that has been sitting quietly in the corner of the room:

At the Winter Soldier Investigation in March, Spec. Patricia McCann, who served in Iraq with the Illinois Army National Guard from 2003-4, read a memo issued to all MEDCOM commanders clarifying that "SAD kits"-- which are forensic rape kits--"are not included in TRICARE coverage." *

TRICARE, the United States Department of Defense Military Health System that covers active duty members, will only pay for rape kits if the victim is seen in a military or a VA facility.

But the Pentagon acknowledges that 80 percent of military rapes are never reported. And that 80 percent who go off-base to protect their anonymity (and/or their careers) are on their own. If a soldier is on leave, or is five-hours from the nearest VA, or if a soldier is simply delivered to the nearest hospital by the local ambulance driver, their rape kits are not covered under TRICARE. Neither are other forensic exams that might be used in domestic violence situations.

Front-line treatment shouldn't be conditional on where a rape occurs or where the nearest treatment is available. This is not only a parity issue, but a further obstacle to treatment and justice.

Women in the military are twice as likely to be raped as their civilian counterparts. In fact, "women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., told the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in May.


Harman said, "The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Health Center where I met female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military, and 29 percent said they were raped during their military service."
go here for more

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/106307/raped_
in_the_military_you%27ll_have_to_pay_for_your_own_forensic_exam_kit/?page=entire
linked from RawStory

Book Takes Look At Why Soldiers Rape

Why Soldiers Rape

By Helen Benedict, In These Times. Posted September 13, 2008.


The Culture of misogyny and illegal war acts in the military fuels sexual violence against women in uniform.

Editor's note: This article is adapted from "The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq," to be published by Beacon Press in April 2009.


An alarming number of women soldiers are being sexually abused by their comrades-in-arms, both at war and at home. This fact has received a fair amount of attention lately from researchers and the press -- and deservedly so.


But the attention always focuses on the women: where they were when assaulted, their relations with the assailant, the effects on their mental health and careers, whether they are being adequately helped, and so on. That discussion, as valuable as it is, misses a fundamental point. To understand military sexual assault, let alone know how to stop it, we must focus on the perpetrators. We need to ask: Why do soldiers rape?


Rape in civilian life is already unacceptably common. One in six women is raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime, according to the National Institute of Justice, a number so high it should be considered an epidemic.


In the military, however, the situation is even worse. Rape is almost twice as frequent as it is among civilians, especially in wartime. Soldiers are taught to regard one another as family, so military rape resembles incest. And most of the soldiers who rape are older and of higher rank than their victims, so are taking advantage of their authority to attack the very people they are supposed to protect.
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While most in the military think rape is a crime, they need to stand up to make sure those who do not, finally get the message. There are a lot more decent men in the military than there are rapists. The good ones outnumber them but all of them are under the microscope when one does it and gets away with it.