Carin Bondar: The birds and the bees are just the beginning

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As General’s Sex Assault Trial Opens, Accuser Describes Violence and Threats

from nytimes


By ALAN BLINDERMARCH 7, 2014


Lawyers for Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, above, questioned the accuser’s credibility.CreditEllen Ozier/Reuters





 FORT BRAGG, N.C. — At one point putting her head in her hands and sobbing, the Army captain who has accused Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair of sexual assault took the witness stand on Friday on the first day of his closely watched court-martial. During five hours of testimony, the 34-year-old captain chronicled in detail a three-year affair that included casual sex at an operating base in Iraq and in a hotel room in North Carolina, but also, she said, violent moments where he forced her to perform oral sex and threatened to kill her if she disclosed their relationship.

Under questioning from the prosecution, the captain, a military intelligence officer, described the affair as often tender, saying, “I wanted to believe I meant something to him.” But it was also volatile and, over time, increasingly frightening, she said.

At one point, the captain said, she told the general, the former deputy commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, that she looked forward to meeting his wife. But he angrily said that would not happen. “He told me that if I ever said anything to her or anyone else about he and I, he would kill me,” the captain said, adding that he also threatened her family.

The case has attracted rapt attention in Congress not only as possible evidence of widespread sexual misconduct in the military, but also as a measure of the Pentagon’s ability to crack down on it. General Sinclair, one of the highest-ranking soldiers to face court-martial in decades, served as the deputy commander of American forces in southern Afghanistan and was widely considered a rising star in the Army before the sexual assault allegations emerged nearly two years ago.

In the most emotional moments of the day, the captain testified that beginning in late 2011, General Sinclair twice forced her to perform oral sex in Afghanistan while she was trying to talk to him about “how much I hated my life.”

“I tried to pull back, and he put his other hand on my shoulder,” the woman said. “He kept pushing down.” After that, she said, “I could not stand being on the same base as him.”

In a new disclosure, the captain asserted that after she resisted some sexual advances by General Sinclair on a hotel balcony in Arizona in 2010, “he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me up against the door.” The defense said it had never heard that story before and questioned its veracity.

Yet the affair continued, the captain said, in part because she was afraid that no one would believe her and that she would be ostracized. Under questioning by the lead prosecutor, Lt. Col. Robert C. Stelle, the captain said she did not report the general until much later because, “I felt somehow like the 82nd would try to cover it up and make it look like I was crazy.”

After the session, Richard L. Scheff, General Sinclair’s lead lawyer, called her testimony “fiction” and said it was “completely different” from the affectionate things she wrote about General Sinclair in her diary. “She filled in the gaps, and she just made it up out of whole cloth,” Mr. Scheff told reporters.

Echoing her opening statement from the morning, Ellen C. Brotman, another member of the defense team, said outside the courthouse, “What she’s upset about is the lack of General Sinclair to make a commitment to her and divorce his wife.” She added, “She spent three years in this relationship, and she thinks she wasted her time, and she’s furious about it.”

The defense is expected to begin cross-examining the captain on Monday morning, when it is expected to raise questions about a January pretrial hearing in which her testimony about an iPhone she used to communicate with General Sinclair contrasted with a forensic analysis.

In a reflection of that strategy, General Sinclair pleaded guilty on Thursday, before the trial opened, to a set of lesser charges in hopes of focusing the testimony on her credibility, his lawyers said. Those lesser counts, which included possession of pornography and adultery, together carry up to 15 years in prison and dismissal from the military.

Last month, the lead prosecutor on the case quit after acknowledging to his superiors that he also felt that the captain had been untruthful in the January hearing, and that he thought the most serious charges against General Sinclair should be dropped. But Army officials have said that the former prosecutor, Lt. Col. William Helixon, was under extraordinary stress from health and personal issues when he expressed those misgivings, and that he remained convinced that the captain’s account of sexual assault was true.

On Friday, the captain began to address the iPhone issue, saying she thought she was telling the truth about when she found the phone and what she did with it.

A version of this article appears in print on March 8, 2014, on page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: As General’s Sex Assault Trial Opens, Accuser Describes Violence and Threats. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe 

CORONA: Teacher ordered to trial on sex-with-students charges

from pe.com

MARCH 4, 2014 BY JOHN ASBURY

Centennial High School teacher Summer Hansen in court Tuesday to waive her preliminary hearing on sex charges. (KURT MILLER/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)

A Corona teacher was ordered Tuesday, March 4, to stand trial on charges that she had sex with five minor students at Centennial High School.

In an unusual move, Summer Hansen waived her preliminary hearing, meaning the prosecution and defense did not have to lay out the basics of their case for the judge to determine if Hansen should face trial.

Defense attorney David Cohn acknowledged there was enough evidence to hold Hansen to trial, and said he chose to waive the preliminary hearing because prosecutors planned to call only police to testify, not the alleged victims.

He said once he is able to question the accusers on the stand, he can prove Hansen’s innocence.

“It was a strategy,” he said. “It saves her the emotion of going through those allegations rehashed. We’re not getting any benefit of doing the prelim today.”

Hansen, 31, was a special education teacher at Centennial until she was arrested in June and charged with 16 felonies, including six counts of unlawful sex with a minor. None of her accusers was in her special education classes.

She has pleaded not guilty. Her attorney has accused the students of lying about their relationships with Hansen, and says her phone was hacked.

The school district placed Hansen on unpaid leave, and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing has suspended her teaching credential.

Hansen is free from jail on $150,000 bond. During Tuesday’s brief court appearance, her previously blond hair now dark brown, she did not speak.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Helios Hernandez ordered Hansen to face trial and scheduled another arraignment for March 25. A trial date could be set in June.

The Centennial High principal reported the allegations to police in June. An 18-year-old former student said Hansen had sent him photos of herself dressed in lingerie while he was still a student and underage. He said two other teens had sex and oral sex with Hansen, according to an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant.

A total of five boys said they had sexual relationships with Hansen while they were minors. The students said the encounters happened after school and on weekends, including inside Hansen’s classroom at least three times, in another room at the school, in her car and at a student’s home.

One victim said that in May 2013, he stayed after class during Saturday school and she began to fondle him and performed oral sex in the classroom, according to the affidavit.

Another 17-year-old student said he lost his virginity to Hansen in her classroom. A third student said he began getting suggestive text messages, which led to sex in her classroom.

Hansen’s attorney denied the allegations and said she has passed a psychological evaluation. Cohn also has had experts examine the text messages that he blames on phone hackers.

“I feel confident in her innocence,” Cohn said.

Corona high school teacher faces trial on sex charges

from mydesertsun

RIVERSIDE — A Corona high school teacher accused of engaging in sex acts with five male students gave up her right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday and will go directly to trial.

Centennial High School special education instructor Summer Michelle Hansen, 31, was arrestedJune 20, and according to the Corona-Norco Unified School District, is on unpaid administrative leave from her job.

She has an information arraignment on March 25 at the Riverside Hall of Justice, and her trial could begin as soon as late June, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.

Hansen could face up to 13 years behind bars if convicted of seven counts of oral copulation of a minor, six counts of statutory rape and three counts of distributing pornographic material to a child.

Hansen, whose teaching credentials have been suspended, is free on a $150,000 bond.

Defense attorney David Cohn told reporters in August that his client “did not have any sexual relations — period — with any of the boys.”

The alleged victims were all students at the school, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.

“The crimes are alleged to have taken place from May 2012 through May 2013, and took place in her classroom, in a utility room at the school, in her vehicle while parked near one victim’s home, and at another victim’s home,” said D.A.’s office spokesman John Hall.

A bail-setting affidavit filed by prosecutors alleges that Hansen had oral sex with a student who was in her classroom for Saturday school; sent a former student texts that were “sexual in nature”; sent students cell phone photos of herself naked; and had sex with two students on campus.

One 17-year-old boy said Hansen initially contacted him about a school function. “However, the texting and phone calls turned to flirting and eventually kissing on two separate occasions and then to having sexual intercourse in her classroom after school hours,” the affidavit alleges.

Several alleged victims said they didn’t know how Hansen got their phone numbers.

According to Cohn, his client’s phone was hacked, and she didn’t send any of the alleged messages or photos.

In mid-June, school district officials notified the Corona Police Department about a possible inappropriate relationship between Hansen and a former student, culminating in a wider investigation.