Senate panel to pursue Coast Guard leadership over academy sexual assault coverup

Dec. 12—After listening to four women describe being sexually assaulted as U.S. Coast Guard Academy cadets, members of a U.S. Senate subcommittee probing a "culture of cover-up" vowed Tuesday to hold past and current Coast Guard leadership accountable.

"We're going to pursue those two individuals and others," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, referring to retired Adm. Karl Schultz, the former commandant of the Coast Guard, and his successor, the current commandant, Adm. Linda Fagan.

Schultz was commandant from 2018 to 2022, during which the decision was made to cover up the results of "Operation Fouled Anchor," a Coast Guard investigation into decades of rapes and sexual assaults at the academy in New London.

CNN, the cable news network, revealed the report's existence this past summer.

"We should all take a moment to reflect on Adm. Fagan having had a chance to make this right (by releasing the report)," Caitlin Maro, a former cadet, told the subcommittee. "Her predecessor left this report in her inbox ... Both Schultz and Fagan should come in here and explain it to you."

"You've read our minds," Blumenthal said.

Sen Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the subcommittee's ranking member, said the subcommittee should issue subpoenas to compel the testimony of academy officials and the release of documents, including portions of Maro's personal records that she said she has been unable to obtain.

Maro entered the academy in June 2004 and withdrew at the end of her first semester after being sexually assaulted. She said she was groped several times in front of some 30 classmates, some of whom laughed. She eventually reported the incident but learned that a superior never investigated it.

"It was clear my career was over before it began," she said.

Maro said Fagan lied when the commandant told Congress that all sexual-assault victims included in the "Operation Fouled Anchor" report had been notified of their inclusion in the report. In fact, Maro said, she learned she was in it from a CNN reporter.

She also disputed Fagan's claim that the Coast Guard has taken action against all of the perpetrators of the assaults documented in the report.

"My perpetrator is now a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard, thriving in a career that I wanted," Maro said.

Retired Coast Guard Lt. Melissa McCafferty, who graduated from the academy in 2011 and now practices law, said she was first assaulted during her freshman year when she traveled to New York City with an upper class cadet she considered a friend. Upon arriving, she found that he had booked only one room.

"Over three days, he repeatedly raped me in that room," McCafferty said. "I told no one. I knew I would be the one to face discipline (for traveling without authorization)."

She said another incident her senior year involved an intoxicated cadet who entered her room and began to undress.

After graduating from the academy and working in the offices of Coast Guard leadership, McCafferty saw first-hand, she said, how sexual misconduct pervades the service.

"There is an incredibly strong connection between abusive behavior and the failure of leaders to hold themselves responsible," she said. "I have witnessed retaliation against those who have spoken up. When the abuse becomes unsufferable, some consider suicide."

McCafferty discussed the case of Glenn Sulmasy, a former academy law professor accused of sexually harassing students, including herself. CNN reported in September that Coast Guard attorneys recommended in 2016 that Sulmasy, who had left the academy the previous year, be charged with conduct unbecoming an officer.

Sulmasy, who was never prosecuted, went on to serve as provost at Bryant University and as president of Nichols College.

Kyra Holmstrup, a senior at the academy, said she was sexually assaulted on what should have been "an innocent ice cream date" during her second week as a cadet. After reporting the incident, she was thrown into the "darkest year of my life," she said, and is still haunted by the assault.

President of Cadets Against Sexual Assault, an organization at the academy, Holmstrup reported there has been some improvement in the reporting process for sexual assaults.

Also testifying was retired Air Force Col. Lorry Fenner, director of government affairs for the Service Women's Action Network, who said accountability was the key to resolving the sexual-assault problem at service academies and in the services themselves.

"If there's not public naming and shaming (of the perpetrators of assaults and those who cover them up), it won't change," she said.

Blumenthal said the subcommittee would keep the record of Tuesday's hearing open until Feb. 1, which he said is longer than usually the case. Anyone can submit testimony anonymously until then, he said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com