Colonel found guilty of sexual harassment in trial seen as a milestone

A former Army battalion commander has been found guilty in a military court of sexually harassing a subordinate, one of the first cases of its kind brought after an overhaul of the military’s legal system that established sexual harassment as a criminal offense.

The officer, Lt. Col. Herman West of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, was accused of repeatedly sexually harassing a female officer in his command, making unwanted comments and touching her inappropriately. He faced additional charges over his treatment of other female officers at the base.

A court-martial judge found him guilty Friday of sexual harassment, conduct unbecoming of an officer and maltreatment. West, who had been removed from his leadership role in the battalion as a result of the case, was fined more than $92,000 and received a written reprimand in his personnel file. The conviction is considered to be a felony-level offense.

According to court documents, West used sexually suggestive language when talking with the officer in his command. The documents also said that he had unbuttoned his pants in front of her, in addition to the inappropriate touching.

During a Friday afternoon sentencing hearing, West apologized to the victims. According to a local television station in Washington, he looked directly at the female officer at the center of the case and said, “My actions were despicable.” He added, “You’ve done nothing wrong.” The woman’s name has not been publicly released.

Criminalizing sexual harassment in the military was part of a broader set of changes mandated by a bipartisan law passed by Congress in 2021, the largest overhaul in generations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (Previously, the military’s legal system did not specifically include sexual harassment as an offense, and prosecutors had to rely on other misconduct charges to bring criminal cases.) The changes also stripped commanders’ authority to decide whether to pursue charges in sexual abuse cases and other serious crimes, transferring that responsibility to specialized prosecutors.

Those changes capped nearly two decades of efforts led by female lawmakers and survivors’ groups to address the pervasive problem of assault and harassment in the military. A recent report from the Department of Defense found that about 7% of active-duty women experienced unwanted sexual contact, and about 25% reported sexual harassment in the previous year.

The movement gained momentum following the killing of Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army specialist at the Fort Cavazos base in Texas, who was murdered after trying to report sexual harassment by another soldier.

Ryan Guilds, a lawyer for the women in the case against West, said the verdict sent a clear message that sexual harassment is a real, harmful crime that undermines the Army’s core values. However, he said the conviction could not undo the damage done to the women and their careers.

“The environment these officers endured is something no one should have to experience,” he said.

But Jason Wareham, who represented West, said the punishment was excessive. He said he believed the case was referred to a general court-martial, the military’s highest trial court, instead of an administrative discipline process because his client is Black.

“I think it’s trauma on all sides,” Wareham said. “He’s now going forward with a felony-level conviction for something that, in the civilian world, would be treated as a human resources-level offense.”

Asked about Wareham’s assertion that race was a significant factor in the result, Guilds said that the military and society overall needed to grapple with issues of race and the equal application of the law.

“But in the end,” he said, “there is only one person responsible for the crimes and conviction here – and that is Lt. Col. West.”

Wareham said West planned to leave the Army.

Advocacy groups working to end sexual violence in the military called the verdict a “critical milestone,” as the case was one of the first to be brought under the updated military justice code.

Elisa Cardnell, president of the Service Women’s Action Network, a group that supports women in the military, including former members, said the revisions in the 2021 law are challenging the culture of “men will be men, boys will be boys.”

“Sexual assault and harassment does a disservice to everyone in the military,” she said. “The mindset that no one is above the law, and that these cases should be prosecuted, will hopefully prevent some of these cases from happening in the future.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.