Randolph Air Force Base, Texas – The female former Air Force Academy cadet who claims she was raped by her cadet commander in August 2000 has refused to sign a waiver allowing Colorado therapist Jennifer Bier to release her counseling records.
Wendy Murphy, the lawyer representing the accuser and Bier, said Lt. Col. Michael O’Sullivan, the lead prosecutor in the court-martial case against First Lt. Joseph Harding, requested the waiver Wednesday night.
Col. David Brash, the chief trial judge of the U.S. Air Force, is conducting closed hearings into a defense motion to postpone the court-martial until the Bier records are produced. Harding’s lawyers have asked that one of the charges against him be set aside until the judge has a chance to review Bier’s records to see if the alleged victim made inconsistent statements to her therapist.
The closed hearings began Wednesday afternoon and continued through Thursday morning. Air Force officials said there was no session Thursday afternoon.
Murphy claimed that other health-care providers wrongly turned over hundreds of pages of the accuser’s health and counseling records and that Brash has given those to Harding’s defense team.
She said the records the defense wants from Bier are cumulative and that there is no way turning over “such a small amount of information” (the Bier records) can be justified.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
