FORT LESLEY J. MCNAIR, Washington, D.C. — What started as a consensual relationship of rough sex and role playing between two Army attorneys could be headed to court-martial.
Members of the defense and prosecution teams made their closing statements Friday, on the third and final day of a preliminary hearing for Capt. Scott Hockenberry, an Army attorney and former special victims prosecutor accused of sexual assault and battery against a former girlfriend.
Hockenberry faces three counts of sexual assault and three counts of assault consummated by battery, based on accusations that he choked, slapped and held a knife to the accuser’s throat, in addition to forcing her to have sex without a condom during the summer of 2016.
The case’s fate hangs on whether Hockenberry was mistaken about the nature of the incidents, in the context of a relationship in which both accuser and accused agree that acts like slapping and hair-pulling were fair game.
The prosecution presented the accuser, who declined to testify at the hearing, as an educated, professional woman who — despite her knowledge of self-defense techniques — froze up when she felt threatened by a man she was intimate with.
“She doesn’t hide the fact that she’s done things she’s not proud of,” special victim prosecutor Lt. Col. Carol Brewer said. “She doesn’t deny that she should have known better.”
The defense pushed back with multiple letters and testimonies from Hockenberry’s friends and former lovers, who described him as a top-notch officer, as well as kind and considerate of the women he had been intimate with.
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“At the outset, she knew exactly what the relationship involved,” said civilian defense attorney William Helixon.
Where Hockenberry crossed the line, Brewer said, was in holding a knife to the alleged victim’s neck and forcing her to have sex without a condom, despite condom usage being an explicit rule of their relationship.
Hockenberry acknowledged both acts in a taped phone call made after the accuser had opened an inquiry with Army Criminal Investigation Command, Brewer said.
“The accused may think that this was a game or it was role playing, but it’s not a game — it’s an assault,” she said.
In another instance, Brewer said, Hockenberry slapped the alleged victim back and forth across her face during a sexual assault. She added that he acknowledged his actions during the recorded call, when the alleged victim told him she had visited a dentist almost two weeks later because of persistent jaw pain.
“ ‘I’ll only hit the soft parts of you,’ “ Brewer said, quoting Hockenberry. “’I thought you were a fighter. Why do you have such a glass jaw?’“
Helixon argued that not only did the two have a consensual relationship of this nature, but because the alleged victim is a trained martial artist and boxing instructor, she should be able to defend herself if she felt the situation getting out of control.
“Being a strong, smart person does not make you immune from being the victim of a crime,” Brewer said, adding that while Hockenberry’s charges stem from two specific incidents, they were not the only times the victim felt threatened by his temper or actions.
“On these two dates, it rose to the level where it would be criminal and we could charge it,” she said.
Brewer contended that the accuser had nothing to gain by reporting Hockenberry, because she did not believe they were in a serious relationship and that, in fact, Hockenberry continued to engage her over text messages after the accuser had cut off communication.
Helixon pushed back, alleging that the alleged victim is out for revenge.
“It’s at that time that she discovered the breadth and depth of the other individuals” he was having a sexual relationship with, Helixon said.
The decision to proceed to trial is in the hands of Col. Patrick Duggan, commander of Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Virginia. An announcement can be expected within the next week, said preliminary hearing officer Lt. Col. Jenevieve Murphy.
Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. She covers operations, policy, personnel, leadership and other issues affecting service members.
