CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A Marine sergeant was acquitted of rape and burglary charges but faces one year in prison and a dishonorable discharge after being convicted of adultery here Wednesday following a two-day court-martial.
A sentencing hearing was scheduled for Thursday for Sgt. Samey Mao, 25, with the Materiel Readiness Battalion, 3rd Marine Logistics Group.
The charges stemmed from an incident Dec. 20 on Camp Schwab. According to evidence presented Tuesday, a 21-year-old lance corporal who worked with Mao as an ammunition company clerk said the married sergeant sexually attacked her while she slept in her barracks room following a night of heavy drinking.
She said she had about 13 drinks with Mao and several other Marines in the span of seven hours at the base enlisted club and a bar in nearby Nago. They returned to the barracks at 2:20 a.m. and she, Mao and another Marine went to her room for a couple more drinks, she said.
She said she kicked them out of the room about an hour later and then went to sleep.
“I was sleeping and I was having a dream,” she testified. “I thought I was having sex and I woke up and realized Sgt. Mao was on top of me.” She never looked at Mao during her testimony.
The major question in the case, defense attorney Capt. Josh Rosen said, was whether the lance corporal could have consented to sex without remembering she had done so.
A clinical psychologist who testified as an expert prosecution witness said that she could have been in a state of blackout induced by heavy drinking.
“She was pretty intoxicated, quite impaired,” said the expert witness, Navy Cmdr. Mark Russell of Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.
During cross-examination by Capt. Josh Rosen, the doctor said people often make decisions while in a blackout that they don’t remember later on.
Rosen produced a parade of witnesses on Tuesday — senior enlisted personnel and officers — who testified Mao was an outstanding Marine of high moral character.
