Sailors stand in formation in this undated photo. A military spouse who says she was beaten, stripped naked and videotaped by a group of sailors outside a California nightclub in 2024 has filed a complaint saying the Navy mishandled her claims. (Taylor Ardito/U.S. Navy)
A military spouse says the Navy didn’t properly address her claim that she was beaten, stripped naked and videotaped by a group of sailors outside a California nightclub nearly two years ago.
In her recently filed federal complaint, the unidentified woman says the Navy’s lack of action has only added to her pain. She is seeking $7 million in damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The legislation allows people to sue the federal government for harm or injuries caused by its employees. Agencies have up to six months to investigate a claim against them and settle or deny it.
It’s unclear whether any of the sailors thought to have participated in the reported June 2024 attack received any discipline.
But the complaint indicates that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service concluded its investigation without filing charges against the assailants or those who distributed video of the assault.
The Navy declined to comment, citing policy on pending or ongoing litigation. The Defense Department, which is also named, deferred comment to the Navy.
In addition to physical injuries that will require surgery, the woman was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and struggles with anger, anxiety and anguish, according to the complaint.
While the experience left her with lifelong physical and psychological trauma, the Navy’s lack of action was as harmful as the actual assault, said Jillian Seymour, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney representing the woman.
“When we’re thinking about someone who has sacrificed so much of her life to an institution and whose husband has, of course, sacrificed so much, and then you see that institution betray you and not just betray you but really just dismiss you, that is a profound harm,” Seymour said.
In the 10-page complaint filed April 29, the woman details an early-morning assault outside a San Diego nightclub after celebrating her birthday with her husband, family and friends.
The woman was surrounded by a group of men and women, who beat her and stripped off her dress and underwear, leaving her completely naked, according to a copy of the complaint given to Stars and Stripes by Seymour’s firm.
One man kicked her in the face several times, and she eventually lost consciousness and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, the complaint says.
Video surveillance outside the nightclub showed people associated with the attack videotaping it, the complaint states.
The woman’s husband, a sailor on USS Carl Vinson, also was attacked and identified at least seven active-duty service members also assigned to the aircraft carrier among the assailants, the document states.
While the husband was familiar with the sailors, neither he nor his wife knew them personally. An NCIS report determined that the attack was unprovoked, Seymour said.
“We do not know why she was attacked in the way she was,” Seymour said.
Afterward, the woman’s husband learned that footage was being circulated and viewed by Carl Vinson sailors and filed a complaint with the ship’s security department.
Security personnel minimized the attack, “framing it as a drunken brawl between bar-goers rather than a coordinated assault by multiple Carl Vinson sailors,” the complaint states.
Naval personnel also declined to investigate dissemination of the video and said the case fell under the jurisdiction of the San Diego Police Department, according to the complaint.
It adds that local police told the woman they were no longer investigating her case because NCIS had assumed jurisdiction.
An NCIS administrator later told the woman that the agency had closed the case after interviewing her. It had decided not to proceed with the case. But the woman had not yet been interviewed by NCIS, she said in the complaint.
The agency subsequently reopened the case and found evidence supporting her claims that the video of the assault had been disseminated across the Carl Vinson, in the wider Navy community and on social media platforms.
For example, investigators found several witnesses who confirmed distribution of the video, the document states.
But due to a “critical delay” in investigating the woman’s claims, many of the videos had either been deleted or vanished from social media platforms where posts disappear after a limited period of time, according to the complaint.
As a result of the assault and dissemination of the video, the woman, her husband and their children moved across the country. She can no longer continue college studies due to the physical and emotional trauma of the attack, according to the complaint.
“The sexual violence I experienced through my assault and the dissemination of the video has thus affected nearly every aspect of my life,” the woman said in the complaint.
Seymour said the Navy’s actions point to larger systemic problems in the handling of military cases of sexual assault and violence against women that persist despite reforms.
The 2020 killing of Vanessa Guillen at Fort Hood, Texas, triggered widespread scrutiny of how the military handles sexual harassment and assault complaints, leading to Pentagon reforms that shifted some prosecutorial decisions outside the traditional chain of command.
“What’s important for my client is that she is understood and heard that what happened to her was not only an act of violence, but (also) it really was sexual in nature,” Seymour said. “She wants to make sure that no one else ... has to experience this kind of violence and certainly won’t have to be subjected to this kind of institutional dismissal like she was.”
