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Chaplain found guilty of forced sex charges

Lt. Shane Dillman, the Navy chaplain accused of several sex-related offenses involving four female shipmates, was found guilty Monday of forcing a female junior enlisted sailor to have sex with him. He was found not guilty of two other sexual assault charges regarding the same female sailor.

Military judge Capt. Moira Modzelewski is currently deliberating his sentence in Norfolk, Va. The government asked for 12 years confinement and dismissal from the service. The defense asked for not more than two years confinement.

On May 26, the first day of the proceeding, Dillman pleaded guilty to accusations that he fraternized, committed adultery or did not conduct himself as an officer and gentleman dating back to 2005 with four young female sailors when he was serving as chaplain at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and aboard the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson.

He was also found guilty Monday of fraternization and adultery with the female sailor he was found guilty of assaulting, and guilty of fraternization with another. He was found not guilty of making a threat, related to a conversation with a boyfriend of a third young female sailor with whom he’d had admitted adulterous relationship.

Dillman, most recently the Vinson’s chaplain, is defended by high-profile civilian defense lawyer Charles Gittins, a former Marine who specializes in military cases.

The rape and assault charges are based on the accusation from a female aviation boatswain’s mate airman apprentice who said Dillman had forced her into sex in late fall 2007. Navy Times is not publishing the name of the accuser because she is the alleged victim of a sexual crime.

Dillman’s accusers were called to testify during his Article 32 hearing in July and at a second hearing in January because of a change in military law.

Testimony during his Article 32 hearings revealed an alleged pattern of conduct and contact involving young female sailors. Witnesses said he told stories about being involved in covert combat operations. In an unsworn statement in the courtroom in the July hearing, he claimed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, deafness in his right ear and dysfunction in his central nervous system.