A colonel at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., who was acquitted in civilian court for groping two young relatives was arraigned in an Army courtroom Tuesday for those same charges and additional charges involving two more relatives. (U.S. Army)
A colonel at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., who was acquitted in civilian court on charges that he groped two young relatives was arraigned in an Army courtroom Tuesday for those same charges and additional charges involving two more relatives.
Col. Scott C. Nauman, 53, who has been assigned to the Combined Arms Center since 2017, is charged with sexual assault of a child, four counts of sexual abuse of a child and abusive sexual contact, according to Army court documents. He pleaded not guilty before military judge Col. Larry Babin.
A court-martial with a jury of officers is scheduled for November, according to the online court docket.
Leavenworth County prosecuted Nauman in March on two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, and jurors found the Army officer not guilty.
Aimee Bateman, an attorney for Nauman in both the civilian and military court proceedings, declined to comment.
The two girls said they were around 11 and 15 when Nauman began to inappropriately touch them between 2020 and 2022, according to civilian court documents. One girl said during a preliminary hearing that Nauman would grope her breasts once or twice a month as she sat at her desk and he sat behind her.
The older girl said Nauman would give her massages that didn’t feel like massages because he would move his hands from her shoulders to her waist and would squeeze her sides. She said she felt uncomfortable but never asked him to stop.
Both girls testified that Nauman measured them for a bra and touched their breasts in the process. The older girl asked to measure herself and was told no, she said.
The case took two years to reach a courtroom, in part because prosecutors appealed a judge’s decision not to allow the jury to hear testimony from two adult relatives who claimed to be former victims.
Prosecutors said the women would testify that Nauman also engaged in various acts of sexual abuse of them while they were minors — including massages, groping, oral sex, kissing and touching Nauman’s private area, according to Kansas court records.
The two women were not allowed to testify in the March trial.
The Army charged Nauman with the allegations of those two women because it has jurisdiction that the state of Kansas does not, said Michelle McCaskill, spokeswoman for the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel, which is prosecuting the case.
Those charges occurred in and around a white trailer-based camper in June and July 2012 at Fort Riley, Kan., and Fort Drum, N.Y., according to court documents. At the time the girls were younger than 16.
Before arriving at Fort Leavenworth, which is about 35 miles northwest of Kansas City, Kan., Nauman attended the Navy War College in Newport, R.I., according to the Combined Arms Center. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and was commissioned in 1995.
Nauman was promoted to colonel in 2017.
