source GAIA package: Sx_MilitaryTimes_M6200810806080311_5675.zip Origin key: Sx_MilitaryTimes_M6200810806080311 imported at Fri Jan 8 18:18:01 2016
Lt. Cmdr. Syneeda Penland didn't like what she was seeing.
As contracting officer for Naval Coastal Warfare Group 1, not long after arriving in early 2006, she claims that her bosses bent rules to pay for building construction and upgrades and allowed civilian contractors to manage military personnel — all things that she said violated either federal laws or Defense Department regulations.
She described a "cowboy culture" that went beyond the small group of boat drivers in San Diego to the larger Navy Expeditionary Combat Command — a young, upstart and rapidly expanding community that, like others, needed to compete for scarce funds. Penland called them the "stepchild" of Big Navy.
As a result, she said, NECC's supply community had a reputation for playing fast and loose with its finances.
"'Sy, why in the world did you take those orders?'" she said friends asked her when she called them to complain about problems at work. "'Why would you want to go there?'"
Penland, a self-described "by-the-book supply officer," had reason to be cautious at her job. In December 2006, her close friend, Army Maj. Gloria Davis, killed herself after Army investigators said she admitted taking nearly $200,000 in kickbacks from defense contractors while working as a supply officer in Kuwait.
Penland, 36, said she was determined not to meet the same fate as her friend, so in her new job at NCWG-1, she continued asking questions when she saw problems. The unit has since changed its name to Maritime Expeditionary Security Group 1.
That, she says, is when her troubles began. On Feb. 26, 2007, she received a letter of instruction from her commanding officer accusing her of missing deadlines and having personality clashes with her co-workers. Shortly after, she got a fitness report grade of 1.0 — despite the fact that the same command gave her a 4.33 on her previous report. And on March 26, Penland, who is single, was told that she was suspected of having a sexual relationship with a married lieutenant junior grade, and of having called the man's wife — a Navy chief — at work to question her about it.
Penland and the married man, Lt. j.g. Mark Wiggan, have denied having a relationship, but her command said they had pictures, which showed a man and woman engaged in sex with no faces visible, given to them by the man's wife in order to prove the affair. Penland turned down mast. On March 29, she was sent on temporary additional duty and was told she would be going to general court-martial. Military law experts say such a decision is rare, if not unprecedented, especially for something that's not illegal in the civilian world. Any conviction at general court-martial is a felony, so in essence, she was being charged with felony adultery.
On May 24 of this year, she was convicted of adultery, conduct unbecoming an officer, disobeying a lawful order and making a false official statement. She was sentenced to 60 days in the brig. Once she's released, Penland, who has more than 19 years' service time, faces discharge and the loss of her retirement benefits.
Penland, who must spend the rest of her life as a convicted felon, said she believes there's only one explanation for what happened to her: payback.
Blowing the whistle
Penland said officials at NECC in San Diego were planning a multimillion-dollar construction and renovation project at the Navy's Outlying Landing Field in San Diego for NECC office spaces. Normally, those contracts need to go through Navy Installations Command, Penland said. But NECC instead used money meant specifically for supplemental war funding to fund the building project, she claims.
A spokesman for NIC said he would comment on NIC's typical role in the contracting process, but he did not call back as of May 30.
Penland said NECC commanders also allowed civilian employees of Logistics Support Inc. to supervise military personnel and approve military contracts, which they're not allowed to do.
A Logistics Support Inc. spokesman refused to comment on Penland's allegations.
After repeatedly complaining to her chain of command, she sent a letter in February 2007 to the office of Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., whose district includes San Diego, detailing the financial problems she found.
Later that month, she would receive the letter of instruction. In early March, she got the bad fitrep. On March 26, she was ordered to mast and learned she was being charged with adultery.
She also said that around that time, there were several instances of racial and gender discrimination by her command, which prompted her to file an equal opportunity complaint, also in March.
Days after she turned down mast, Penland requested an NECC inspector general investigation to look into the financial misconduct and reprisal allegations. After believing that the NECC IG was dragging its feet, she kicked it up to the Defense Department IG. Her attorney, Marine Capt. Patrick Callahan, said the Navy must respond to allegations of command reprisal within 180 days. Penland alerted the Defense Department IG after waiting a year to hear back from NECC.
A Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon said NECC officials could not comment on the case or on Penland's allegations because the IG investigation was still open. An NECC spokeswoman said she would look into it, but she did not call back by press time.
But Penland's EO complaint has been completed, and in the command's July rejection of the complaint, Capt. Eileen Riley wrote that Penland made allegations only after learning that she was under investigation for adultery. Penland counters that she alerted her superiors to the problems — and contacted Filner's office — before she was informed of the adultery charge.
A senior civilian Navy contracting official, who declined to be identified and also works at the command, backed up Penland's claims that things weren't on the up and up. He said Penland reported financial improprieties to him over an extended period of time and said when he checked out her complaints, he found that they had merit.
"She was a knowledgeable contracting officer," the official said of Penland. "If she didn't know something, she wasn't one of those people who tried to fake you out. She would find the answer. She was very professional. She was an assistant supply officer who was probably sharper than 90 percent of the [senior] supply officers I have dealt with."
The official said he personally had raised complaints about financial misconduct within NECC even before Penland brought complaints to him. Once he backed Penland, he noticed that the flow of paperwork from her command into his office slowed dramatically.
"After she raised these issues, we didn't see work coming our way. We didn't see near the work."
Navy officials tell a different story. According to the investigating officer's report after her Article 32 hearing, Penland frequently missed deadlines, advised an enlisted man to have sex with the female warrant officer who supervised him in order to "shift power," had problems getting along with her co-workers and harassed the wife of the man she is accused of having an affair with by calling her aboard her ship. She was not charged of the "shift power" accusation.
"In my opinion, Lieutenant Commander Penland has a lot of issues following rules," Ike Owens, a retired Navy captain who now works as a contractor for Logistics Support, told Riley during her investigation of Penland's EO complaint.
"That's not the person I know," the senior contracting officer said. "I never saw any of that."
The trial
The case against Penland hinged on photographs and e-mails. The prosecution — and Wiggan's ex-wife — said the photos depicted sex acts between Wiggan and Penland, and the e-mails showed an inappropriate relationship between the O-4 and the O-2. Wiggan and his wife were going through a divorce when she first accused Penland of the affair.
Callahan said the photos are actually of Wiggan and his now ex-wife. The e-mails, he said, could have been written by Wiggan's wife in an effort to frame Wiggan and Penland. No faces could be seen in the photos, and there are no identifying scars or tattoos that would clearly prove the identity of the woman in the photos.
Callahan pointed out that Penland was charged with adultery even though she was single, while the man with whom she was convicted of having a sexual relationship was not charged. Instead, he received a glowing fitness report and a Navy commendation after he allegedly told his executive officer about the relationship.
Whatever happened, a jury of five captains and three commanders found Penland guilty of adultery, conduct unbecoming an officer, disobeying a lawful order and making a false official statement.
"It was very surprising to see an officer given jail time for purely military offenses," Callahan said, adding that it was also unusual to see an adultery case taken to a general court-martial, where a conviction on a lesser count would be equivalent to a felony conviction in civilian courts. "These are things where if she was working at the local Sears, she would have been called into the office and yelled at, and at worst, fired."
Retired Army Col. Michael Spak, now a military law professor at the Chicago Kent College of Law, said this was a clear case of a double standard.
"In my eight years [of] active-duty experience, the only one we would ever try for adultery was the female, never the male," Spak said. "It is an abomination. The court is rigged."
Wayne Johnson, a retired commander and former Navy lawyer, said most adultery cases are proven when one party testifies under immunity against the other. But Penland and Wiggan both denied the affair, and Wiggan was offered immunity by Navy prosecutors if he would testify against Penland. He declined the immunity.
Callahan added that he was surprised to see Penland taken to general court-martial after turning down mast. Most adultery cases are handled at lower levels, he said. Spak agreed.
"If you are offered mast, then the commander did not think you needed a general court-martial," he said. "So if you refuse mast, at most it should go to the lower court-martial, not the highest. If they thought it belonged at the highest court, they never should have offered her mast."
Navy prosecutors did not return calls about the case.
Spak said the fact that the jury did not recommend Penland receive a punitive discharge proved to him the case was "bad."
But military law expert Eugene Fidell said that by refusing mast, Penland gave her superiors power to deal with her as they chose to.
"This could end up costing her a million dollars or more," he said. "On the other hand, higher authorities could decide that for public policy reasons, this case should not stand — even if she did commit adultery."
