'In my opinion, I really didn't have a chance at justice from the beginning.'
MORE: Sexual assault and harassment cases up significantly at military service academies despite prevention efforts, Pentagon survey finds
Erin Scanlon has filed a $10 million claim against the Army, but it is blocked by a controversial Supreme Court ruling. A spokesperson for U.S. Army Special Operations Command provided the following statement to ABC News on Scanlon's case:"U.S. Army Special Operations Command referred the criminal allegation to court-martial June 2018. The court-martial panel returned a finding of not guilty." The Army declined ABC News' public records request related to Scanlon's case.Initial investigation
Scanlon said she continued to try pushing him away and tell him no, but eventually"had just kind of given up." The lawyer also said that there were witnesses who said they saw the incident, with one testifying at the court martial that she saw Scanlon with her arms wrapped around the sergeant's neck and legs wrapped around his waist and that the incident appeared to be consensual.
Deanne Gerdes, the executive director of Rape Crisis of Cumberland County, where Scanlon sought help, said it's common for sexual assault victims to suppress certain memories of an assault.After waiting more than a year for the trial to begin, Scanlon suffered another setback. Scanlon also claimed that when she reported the incident to the CID, she says officers at CID told her to speak to Fayetteville Police because the alleged assault happened there.Erin Scanlon joined the U.S. Army in 2015, but has since left because of the ordeal.When the case was handed over, Scanlon faced another challenge.
Beyond her own testimony, Scanlon says she knows little about the trial and ABC News has been unable to obtain trial transcripts to shed light on what happened. "Being ordered to do something in the military is much different [than in civilian life.] Whether [the SVC] wanted to or not … it was someone who outranked her who ordered her" back to testify, Gerdes said. Scanlon's SVC who was called to testify did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
When both the government and the sergeant's attorneys rested their case, Scanlon decided to write a victim impact statement in hopes that she could read it if the man she accused was convicted. Sexual assault victims in the military can file a restricted report, which allows them to confidentially report an alleged assault to get treatment, but not trigger a full investigation.
Gerdes remembered that after the trial Scanlon wanted to know about the sergeant's whereabouts, out of fear she may run into him at Fort Bragg. Dr. Nathan Galbreath, the acting director for the department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said in a statement to ABC News that the DoD"remains absolutely committed to preventing sexual assault and encouraging greater reporting of the crime."
"I kinda did not bounce back like I was hoping to after the trial," she said."It was right around then I realized, I'm not doing this anymore. I need to get out."Erin Scanlon hopes her story will give other women the strength to come forward.Scanlon's attorney, Khawam, said that when she first heard Scanlon's case she immediately took it on because of her continued fight to limit Feres. One of her clients, Sgt.
While he does not know the exact number of cases in which the Feres doctrine stops a claim against the military in terms of a sexual assault case, he said he believes that most victims would want to have their day in civil court but are not able to do so.
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