Air Force Academy – A woman allegedly raped by a fellow cadet consented to sex but does not remember doing so because of a “textbook case of alcohol blackout,” a defense psychiatrist testified Tuesday in the court-martial of the senior cadet.
Dr. William Kenner, a psychiatrist from Nashville, Tenn., said cadet Benjamin Kuster’s accuser claims she was sleeping when the sex occurred during a scuba club trip. The alleged victim, however, was in a state of alcohol-induced amnesia, Kenner said. She could remember some things but not others.
Kenner said the alleged victim, now a second lieutenant in the Air Force, could remember Kuster rubbing his hand near her bellybutton ring and touching her bra but not having her clothes removed or having sex.
“What she has done is fill in what has happened in terms of how she would feel the next morning,” Kenner testified.
Kuster is charged with rape and also indecent acts for having sex with his girlfriend in front of other cadets who were trying to sleep in the hotel room where the group was staying in New Mexico in May 2004.
He told an investigator that he had sex with a woman in the darkened hotel room but believed it was his girlfriend.
Kuster has fulfilled all the requirements for graduation and would have tossed his cap during class of 2005 graduation ceremonies today if not for the rape allegations. If acquitted, he’ll graduate and be commissioned into the Air Force. If he’s found guilty of either charge, he will earn his credits but probably not receive his diploma, a spokeswoman said.
Kuster is the first cadet to be charged with rape since a 2003 sexual-assault scandal that prompted Air Force leaders to usher in an “Agenda for Change” calling for new leadership policies at the academy.
Prosecutors contend the woman was raped because she was too drunk to consent to sex.The defense claims the woman accused Kuster of rape because she was afraid she would be discharged from the Air Force for kissing Kuster’s girlfriend.
That night, the alleged victim and Kuster’s girlfriend hooked arms and toasted like newlyweds at dinner, then returned to a hotel room where they kissed, according to witnesses and the women themselves.
Staff writer Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
