NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — Lawyers representing a Navy SEAL accused of kidnapping and raping a female sailor from his unit say the charges are simply an attempt at revenge by a jilted lover.
At the general court-martial of Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Stephen Varanko III, the one thing the prosecution and defense agreed on was that the pair was involved in a consensual workplace affair that spanned one deployment, multiple training trips and thousands of text messages.
But the agreement stopped there.
During a training assignment to Fort Knox, Kentucky, the prosecution says Varanko, an 11-year veteran, held the woman hostage in a hotel room, raped and nearly choked her to death. (It is Navy Times policy to not identify victims of alleged sexual assaults.)
Varanko, whose trial began in Norfolk on Tuesday, has been charged with four counts of rape, four counts of sexual assault and other charges that include kidnapping, aggravated assault, battery and sexual harassment.
A conviction of the most serious offenses could mean facing up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Because there is no jury in the case, which will likely last until Friday, the verdict rests solely on the shoulders of a military judge, Cmdr. Heather Partridge.
' I lost a little bit of control'
Varanko's attorneys say the allegations stem from the woman's desire for revenge after Varanko refused to leave his wife for her. The defense also suggested that she benefited from filing charges as it resulted in an immediate transfer to a new unit and a fresh start for her career and personal life.
Varanko was newly married and also two years into his relationship with the alleged victim when he and the woman attended training at Fort Knox. There, the pair, along with others from the command, were returning to their hotel near Shepherdsville after a trip to a local strip club, according to an opening statement made by the military prosecutor, Marine Capt. Matthew Davidhizar.
Varanko's phone was dying, Davidhizar said, so he asked the alleged victim to borrow her phone to be able to find the hotel, which he kept for "about 20 minutes," according to the woman.
Once alone with the woman, Varanko confronted her and became enraged about text messages indicating she had dated and slept with another man eight months before, Davidhizar said.
"It was just too much for this married man, who was cheating on his wife with the victim," Davidhizar said. "It was too much for Chief Varanko."
The prosecution described Varanko as being "obsessed" with the woman. When the couple was apart, they would text each other as many as 75 times a day.
Much of the text exchanges, the prosecution said, was Varanko trying to manipulate the woman because he was madly in love with her at the time.
"He was so insecure," the alleged victim testified in the courtroom on Tuesday. "If I didn't say good morning, I would hear about it. If he saw me talking to someone or laughing, he'd question me about it. There was always jealousy about anything I did."
The woman said that she had often tried to distance herself from Varanko, who would invariably woo her back. She admitted that months earlier she'd told him that she wanted to date other men, though she never told him that she'd not only gone on a date, but also had sex with the other man.
Varanko, she said, never forgot her discussions of dating others and would often text her with comments like, "have you found my replacement, yet?"
Nevertheless, the two would reconcile and the relationship went on.
"This case has a theme — jealousy, obsession and violence," Davidhizar said. "She was in love with him and he was obsessed with her."
The woman was aware of Varanko's civilian girlfriend early in the relationship. The alleged victim admitted that she willingly continued the relationship with Varanko during his engagement and even after his marriage.
When the prosecutor asked her how many times they'd had sex after Varanko got married, she responded "two or three times." She also said she was planning to again on the night of Feb. 26, 2015.
Back in the hotel room, Varanko confronted her with the text messages suggesting her relationship with another man. He then berated her for hours, the prosecution claims, and eventually, his verbal abuse turned physical.
Varanko later admitted that was when "I lost a little bit of control," according to statements Varanko made to investigators.
"I never hit the girl, I did push her on the bed and at one point, she was like on the ground in the corner and I got like real close to her, kind of on top of her. I said a lot of mean f-ing things to her, but I never f-ing hit her," Varanko told investigators, according to documents presented in court.
The prosecution, however, said that Varanko pinned her up against the wall with his hands around her neck, choking her so she couldn't breathe. He then pushed her to the floor and put her in what prosecutors described as a "submission hold," with her arm held behind her and his knee in her back.
Both sides said the evening concluded with sex. Varanko denies it was rape, but the woman said she only had sex with him because she feared bodily harm.
After the incident, the two continued to text each other, even the next day. He apologized for his anger and actions that night, but didn't mention specific details.
'I stayed because I still love you'
According to one of Varanko's defense attorneys, Navy Lt. Alaric Piette, a judge advocate and also a former enlisted SEAL, that wasn't the complete story.
Piette outlined the Varanko's version of the case in opening statements Tuesday and showed the court text messages that the prosecution left out.
"I stayed because I still love you," she texted to him the afternoon of Feb. 27, 2015, the day after the alleged rape occurred.
The defense also showed a phone video that Piette said the woman sent to Varanko two weeks after the incident. In the video, she was in uniform and didn't talk. Instead, she showed a series of cards with writing on them saying "You are perfect, you are gorgeous…i want to be your one and only forever."
The defense attorney questioned the woman's account of being thrown up against the wall and held against the floor, saying that investigators talked to hotel guests who stayed in adjacent rooms and no one reported hearing anything.
But Piette did not deny the woman's entire story.
"There was a fight — he found a text," Piette said. "We are not making excuses."
Twice, Piette alluded to post-traumatic stress as a factor, saying that Varanko "suffered from an ailment that many in our community suffer from."
Piette never specifically mentioned the words "post-traumatic stress," but said Varanko needed flattery and reassurance and that "he let the relationship go way too far."
The defense continued to paint a picture of a woman obsessed with Varanko and substantially troubled, both personally and professionally.
"What other attitude am I supposed to have," she texted him. "My life…not one aspect but all aspects are crumbling beneath me."
The woman first filed a "restricted" sexual assault report, an option the Navy offers allowing women to report a sexual assault and to receive treatment while keeping the assailant anonymous.
Yet even after the report, she was still communicating with Varanko over text and email. She still held out hope, Piette told the court, that Varanko would leave his wife for her.
The woman got word in early March, according to the defense, that Varanko and his wife had closed on a new home. She even texted, "congratulations," and told him to "enjoy your new life."
"That was the final straw," Piette told the court. "He closes on his house and she realizes he is never going to leave his wife."
Shortly after that exchange, Piette said, she then changed her report from restricted to unrestricted, which in turn triggered an investigation into Varanko and afforded the woman an immediate transfer to a new command.
"This is a case of revenge," Piette said. "Driven not by any beat down as the prosecution would have you believe, but driven by his refusal to leave his wife."
Mark D. Faram is a former reporter for Navy Times. He was a senior writer covering personnel, cultural and historical issues. A nine-year active duty Navy veteran, Faram served from 1978 to 1987 as a Navy Diver and photographer.
