Cadet Claiming Rape Testifies She Doesn’t Remember

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The New York Sun

NEW LONDON, Conn. – A woman who claims she was raped by a fellow Coast Guard cadet testified at a court-martial yesterday that she remembers almost nothing of that night because she drank about two bottles of wine and blacked out.

The woman, now an officer, said that it was not until the next morning that she learned that she and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Webster Smith, had had sex.

She said Mr. Smith told her the condom had broken and recommended she seek emergency contraception, but she did not know whether to believe him. Weeks later, she got a positive result on a home pregnancy test.

“I thought that I had been date raped,” she said under questioning by a military prosecutor.

Mr. Smith, 22, of Houston, is charged with rape and other sex offenses against three women. He is the first cadet in the U.S. Coast Guard Academy’s 130-year history to be court-martialed.

The rape case centers on a night of heavy drinking last summer in Annapolis, Md.

“I would say I consumed definitely over a bottle of wine,” Mr. Smith’s accuser testified yesterday, referring to 1.5-liter bottles on the defense table. “I’d say, about two bottles of wine that night.”

Testimony during pretrial hearings suggested that the woman had an abortion, but the judge refused to allow any medical records into evidence yesterday, saying it would prejudice the jury. Jurors were told only that the woman did not carry the child to term.

Defense attorneys pointed out that her relationship with Mr. Smith continued after the alleged rape.

The woman acknowledged that the night afterward, she and Mr. Smith attended a concert with friends, then spent the night together in a hotel. She said they remained in contact last fall at the academy, and months after the alleged rape had sex again.


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