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When a Navy officer was accused of sexually molesting two of his children, city social workers investigated and concluded that the allegations were credible. They placed his name on the State Child Abuse and Neglect Registry.He was forbidden under court order from going within 2 miles of the home, school or workplace of any of his four children until they turn 18.But when the Navy examined the same allegations, the result was the opposite. The officer was cleared. He has faced no criminal prosecution. To the contrary, he has been promoted and allowed to stay in his $96,000-a-year job unhindered.Meanwhile, the Navy lieutenant is divorcing his wife, who has been left destitute. The family home in Virginia Beach has been lost to foreclosure. The wife and four children have moved five times in four years, ending up in a cockroach-infested motel room at the Oceanfront, where they live among the homeless and drug addicts.The judge in the divorce case, persuaded that the allegations were impeding the officer's Navy career, has declared his wife in contempt of court and sentenced her to 10 days in jail - time that she will have to serve unless she pays a $5,000 fine.She has no money to pay the fine. She is barely able to feed her children.How could this happen?The Navy is trying to find out. After learning of The Virginian-Pilot's findings, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has opened an investigation to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against the lieutenant, NCIS spokesman Ed Buice said Friday.In addition, Buice said, the NCIS is trying to determine why no such investigation was undertaken when the allegations came to light four years ago.The Virginia Beach Department of Human Services has faced public scrutiny after two recent fatalities in child-abuse cases. In this instance, the agency's investigations appear to have been comprehensive and its findings unequivocal.The lieutenant was accused of sexually abusing his 13-year-old daughter and his 10-year-old son. In both cases, the city's Child Protective Services unit reached a finding of Level 1 sexual abuse. That's the most severe designation, meaning the child suffered serious harm.The lieutenant appealed the findings. In the daughter's case, he settled with the agency by consenting to the less serious Level 2 designation, meaning the child suffered moderate harm. By signing that decree, he was admitting - after two years of denials - that abuse occurred.It's unclear how the appeal of the son's case was resolved.The lieutenant declined through his attorney to comment on the case.In keeping with a policy of not identifying alleged victims of sexual abuse, The Pilot is not naming any of the family members in this report. In a tearful interview with a social worker, the daughter said her father took her into a bedroom, locked the door, pinned her down by her wrists and raped her, city records obtained by The Pilot show. She said the assault followed two years of inappropriate touching by her father."He kept saying that if I told anyone, he would hurt me," the daughter said in a written account. "I screamed but no one could hear me.... I was too scared to tell anyone."Two years after the alleged rape, a psychologist who counseled the girl reported that she was experiencing high levels of depression and post-traumatic stress with anxiety, insomnia and flashbacks, and had developed an ulcer. She reported fleeting thoughts of suicide."This thing has ruined me forever," she told a social worker. "I take three or four showers a day to feel clean."The girl's allegations were "detailed, consistent and she has no obvious motivation to fabricate," a social worker noted on a log sheet.Her father, who underwent a court-ordered psychosexual evaluation, was found to exhibit "a nondisclosing (86% 'False' responses), highly guarded and defensive profile."The evaluator placed him in the "Denier-Dissimulator child sexual abuser category."
