A 32-year-old Coast Guardsman has been convicted of trying to film two of his female shipmates in a locker room aboard the cutter Northland, according to a Tuesday release.
Machinery Technician 1st Class Michael Cote was originally charged with two counts of indecent visual recording but pleaded down to attempted indecent visual recording and was sentenced to six months in the brig, Coast Guard 5th District spokesman Lt. Scott McBride told Navy Times.
The recording of the women took place multiple times between October 2014 and May 2015, McBride said, while the women were in the Portsmouth, Virginia-based ship’s locker room.
He attempted to film them while they were in the female locker, he added, through a space in the wall of the adjacent crew lounge
“The first victim reported one of the incidents to the command in May 2015,” he said. “During the investigation, it was discovered that he attempted to record a second victim.”
There is a possibility that Cote’s recording was more widespread, but there are no indications it was as widespread as the high-profile videotaping ring that allegedly recorded women officers and midshipmen undressing in a shower changing room aboard ballistic missile submarine Wyoming.
“We know that he tried to film at least two individuals,” McBride said. “We have no forensic evidence to support that he filmed any additional victims.”
Cote was sentenced to 12 months in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Virginia, be busted down to E-1 and receive a bad-conduct discharge, according to the release.
However, because of his pre-trial plea agreement, he will have six months knocked off of that term.
The conviction is the second for sexual misconduct-related offenses for Northland in the past year, after a senior chief was found guilty in April of sexually assaulting two junior enlisted shipmates over more than a year.
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