This summer, a U.S. Navy doctor, Lt. Cmdr. Anthony L. Velasquez, 48, walked free after serving seven days in the brig at the Yokosuka base in Kanagawa Prefecture. He had admitted to two counts each of wrongful sexual contact and conduct unbecoming an officer. He had, however, gotten off lightly, with a two-year prison sentence, $28,000 fine and forfeiture of all pay and allowances suspended for a year in a deal struck with naval authorities. Twenty-nine further charges were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea.
Some 23 women have come forward, in both Japan and Kuwait, with allegations they were sexually assaulted by Velasquez, and those victims do not feel that justice has been served. Amanda and Jennifer, American spouses of navy personnel whose real names have been withheld, spoke to The Japan Times about their experiences with the case and their sense of having been victimized twice: first at the hands of Velasquez, then by the U.S. Navy.
"My doctor was out of town so I had to see Velasquez. In the examination he untucked my shirt and fondled my breasts. Then he asked me to come back to do a pap smear, and I told him I had had a full hysterectomy and there was nothing to be checked," said Amanda, a woman in her 40s who was based in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, at the time of the incident. "He still said that I should have one done. I looked at him like he was crazy because I had worked in the medical field."
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