Navy to review gay dog handler abuse case after Sestak intervenes

9/23/09-by Paula Brooks
US Navy officials announced yesterday that they are re-examining their investigation of the hazing of a gay sailor and others in a Navy dog-handling unit in Bahrain after Joe Sestak, a Pennsylvania congressman and former admiral, sent a letter asking Navy Secretary Raymond Mabus to take another look at the case.

Last month, official Navy documents confirmed a former US Navy Petty Officer was brutalized for more than two years at his base in Bahrain after members of his unit suspected that he is gay abut that the Navy still promoted the Chief Petty Officer responsible for the violence, even though Naval officials were aware of his role in creating the climate of abuse.

A statement from Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations said Roughead has directed Vice Adm. Michael C. Vitale, the commander of Navy installations worldwide, to review the actions taken after the earlier investigation and report back to him by Oct. 6.

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In his letter to Marbus, Sestak said, “During my 31 years in the military, I served alongside and in command of men and women of all backgrounds, beliefs, and identities who fought valiantly and selflessly…. When a man or woman puts on a military uniform, he or she immediately assumes a commonality of purpose with all fellow service members. Failing to treat everyone with the same level of dignity and allowing acts of assault or battery to go unaddressed, would be counter to not only our national values, but to the concept of brotherhood and sisterhood that I learned is so essential to – and such a key part of – the spirit of our armed forces.” Sestak added, “My inquiry is to determine whether there is any basis for actions contrary to that spirit.”

Petty Officer Third Class Joseph Rocha was a military police dog handler with anti-terrorism training who graduated at the top of his military class, and had received favorable performance evaluations throughout his career.

But when his shipmates first suspected that he is gay after he refused to sleep with female prostitutes, a practice that was widespread at his base, a two-year pattern of abuse began that included hog-tying him to a chair and pushing him, still bound, into a dog kennel full of feces.

Rocha also says he was forced him to simulate oral sex with a man more than thirty times, on video tape, as part of a training exercise to teach sailors how to respond to a hypothetical complaint about homosexual sex. He also claims to have been beat repeatedly while being forced to bend over a desk.

However, Rocha says he did not report the abuse, which continued until 2006, because he feared retaliation as well as discharge under “don’t ask, don’t tell.

Eventually, Rocha, now 23, was forced to give up an appointment to the Naval Academy after telling a commanding officer in 2007 that he was gay while being treated for post-traumatic stress brought on by the abuse.

During the course of its initial investigation the Navy also discovered that while Rocha was singled out and forced to endure the longest period of abuse, others were also victimized.

An official military summary of the investigation lists 93 incidents, such as allowing a dog to attack a sex worker, and handcuffing two female sailors to a bed and forcing them to simulate lesbian sex while being videotaped.

One of those sailors in the handcuffing incident eventually committed suicide.

Despite an investigation that found Chief Petty Officer Michael Toussaint, who headed the kennel at the time of the alleged abuses, presided over most of the abuse and was the primary focus of that investigation, he was still promoted to the rank of Senior Chief and Navy officials have not been able to say why he was not held accountable in the case.

Toussaint is now assigned to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, VA.

In inquiries made yesterday by LGR, a Navy spokesman at Oceana said Toussaint is currently deployed and would be unavailable to comment.