At Coast Guard hearing, more survivors tell of sexual misconduct

This story has been updated .

The reckoning over the U.S. Coast Guard’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations at its New London service academy has shifted to the enlisted side as survivors recounted stories of experiencing assault and harassment while serving.

Five current and former Coast Guard members testified Thursday at a U.S. Senate field hearing in New London. Their stories focused on the barriers they faced while reporting, the retaliation that often followed and the lack of accountability for alleged assailants. Some of them said they took years to come forward because of a culture that left them feeling fearful and unsafe.

The location of the hearing held significance — Connecticut College is only half a mile away from the Coast Guard Academy, which has been under scrutiny for the past year over the cover-up of an investigation into decades of sexual misconduct claims known as Operation Fouled Anchor .

The investigation looked into claims at the academy over a two-decade period that ended in 2006. But Thursday’s hearing put a spotlight on a problem for those who were enlisted and served on active duty with reported incidents as recently as a couple of years ago.

“It’s not limited to the academy. It’s persistent and pervasive,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who serves as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “The culture of cover-up continues to this day.”

Two of the whistleblowers — Chief Warrant Officer 4 Julian Bell and Yeoman Petty Officer First Class Crystal Van Den Heuvel — are still affiliated with the Coast Guard. Retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Shawna Ward, retired Lieutenant Commander Tina Owen and former Seaman Meghan Klement have since left or retired.

Ward, who retired in 2018 after 24 years in the Coast Guard, testified that she dealt with harassment and a hostile work environment. She described an instance of a male leader throwing a piece of paper across the table, while exclaiming, “f—— women, in the f—— Coast Guard all because a female would be arriving.” She said a supervisor told her she would “always be under a microscope” as a woman in the service.

Owen retired a year earlier, in 2017, after more than two decades of serving in active duty. She testified that she was first assaulted by a health services technician who was caught taking more than 100 inappropriate X-rays of her and others. She was told “to get over it” when finding out about this three years later.

Van Den Heuvel’s incident was the most recent. She was working as a recruiter in Virginia in 2022 when she was sexually harassed by an aviation maintenance technician while she was in Cape May, N.J., for recruiter training. She described various inappropriate comments made to her, including that he thought about stealing her underwear while she was out of her room and out to dinner.

She argued that her case was not properly handled or reported and that she was considered “complicit” in her own sexual harassment. Van Den Heuvel said she was relieved as a recruiter in early 2023 when she thought she was up for a promotion.

While it was their first time testifying, Klement and Bell had gone public with their stories months ago in taped videos.

Klement, who left the Coast Guard in 2015, said she was assaulted by two different people and was repeatedly discouraged from reporting. Bell chose not to report his rape by a shipmate and two Navy sailors until 12 years had passed and suffered medical and mental health issues that he said were brought on by the trauma and stress of the incident.

“What has happened to me has happened to so many others. I am not unique. I am not special. I am one of many,” Klement said at the hearing. “I will continue to stand up for these members, and I will continue to find ways to make the Coast Guard a safer place.”

The stories at Thursday’s hearing reflected the larger themes of dozens of other whistleblower accounts that were compiled into a nearly 50-page report released a day earlier.

The subcommittee’s majority report, which drew on the stories from more than 80 whistleblowers from the 1970s to 2020s, described it as a “systemic” problem within the Coast Guard that was not “unique” to the New London academy.

Of those accounts that have been shared with the committee since September, 39 of them spoke about sexual assault and 27 of them about sexual harassment over five decades.

The report also pushes back on the narrative that it is a problem of the past. Six whistleblowers experienced sexual assault or harassment while enlisted or at the academy since 2020.

“The voices of these whistleblowers make clear that sexual assault and sexual harassment in the Coast Guard are fleet-wide problems, impacting enlisted members and officers just as pervasively as cadets,” Blumenthal said in the report.

Klement said she had been feeling “hopeful” that the Coast Guard was making progress since she left almost a decade ago.

In March, the Coast Guard recorded videos of Klement and Bell and audio of another survivor to share their stories of sexual assault. They were intended for public release to show transparency within the service and as a healing experience for survivors.

The Coast Guard filmed a video series that was modeled after a program used by the U.S. Air Force. But an internal document from the spring detailed their hesitations with sharing the videos — the legal ramifications of discussing open investigations, the interest it would draw from congressional committees and additional damage they could bring since Operation Fouled Anchor.

“This could continue to exacerbate the narrative being advanced by some that the Coast Guard is in a sexual assault crisis now, despite [Operation Fouled Anchor] including only historical cases of sexual assault at the Coast Guard Academy,” the memo read.

Klement ended up posting her video online on her own, and the Coast Guard eventually published the videos and audio on its own site. She testified that she felt like the service was still trying to “silence our stories,” but she said it led to more than 50 others who reached out for help about their own experiences.

In the wake of Operation Fouled Anchor, Commandant Linda Fagan has testified before Congress twice in the last year. She most recently appeared before Blumenthal’s panel in June where she said she would “remain steadfast in my commitment to making lasting cultural change.”

Fagan first testified before Congress a year ago after CNN broke the news of Operation Fouled Anchor. In that hearing last July, Fagan apologized before a different Senate committee about the Coast Guard’s inaction and failure to disclose to Congress.

At the June hearing, lawmakers questioned Fagan on whether the Coast Guard has taken any actions regarding survivors who have faced retaliation for reporting allegations or leadership who played a role in keeping Operation Fouled Anchor hidden. She said she is waiting on the conclusion of the inspector general’s investigation, which she added “will provide insights into whether non-criminal misconduct occurred or not.”

Fagan said she was not aware of any officer who was guilty of retaliation. And when pressed if there is enough information already available to reprimand those who hid Fouled Anchor, she responded, “At this point, I don’t have any direct evidence of misconduct.”

“We failed to disclose the Fouled Anchor report to Congress. That was a mistake,” Fagan testified in June. “I can’t go back and change that. I remain committed to moving the organization ahead.”

The Coast Guard has taken some steps to prevent and address sexual misconduct like implementing a safe-to-report policy for victims who fear punishment for minor unrelated infractions while reporting sexual misconduct. A spokesperson for the Coast Guard said leadership has implemented more than half of the 33 actions recommended by Fagan after the service completed an accountability review in July 2023.

“Today, we heard heartbreaking testimony from victims and survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment,” a Coast Guard spokesperson said in a statement. “The Coast Guard commends the courage of those who testified and their desire to make the Coast Guard better. Their experiences are helping us to shape policies and actions to prevent sexual misconduct and ensure effective victim support and accountability.”

But the five whistleblowers on Thursday gave several recommendations of their own to further transparency and accountability. Those included having a third-party, independent agency review and investigate allegations as well as bringing alleged assailants out from retirement to hold them accountable.

“It’s very common,” Bell said, “that tactic of just waiting for someone to retire.”

While the five whistleblowers shared emotional and personal stories about failures of the Coast Guard, they said they still love the service and are working to make it a safe place for cadets and active duty members.

Bell recounted his positive experience of speaking at a summit in February that was attended by Coast Guard senior leaders and flag officers. He said he received a standing ovation after telling his story and received personal assurances from Fagan about a change in the culture.

He was also approached by the Coast Guard Investigative Service, which reopened his case this year. But Bell said he was dismayed to find out CGIS never interviewed his assailant and that there was missing evidence. The recent investigation closed without any administrative or criminal actions taken against Bell’s former shipmate, who was able to retire shortly after it ended.

Bell said he still feels like there are “empty promises” in the months since.

“I still feel jaded, I think, and that’s kind of why I’m here today and the reason I keep saying what I’m saying,” Bell said. “We need to hold ourselves accountable in order to move forward. These program changes and policy changes — those are great — but we’re not rebuilding trust.”