Originally Posted by
Herod
Would it be possible for the Captain to sue the F.O. for libel, if he believes himself to be innocent? That might bring more evidence to light. Just a thought.
Here's a recent case of a bogus rape claim leading to a successful jury verdict for defamation:
Retired colonel wins $8.4M lawsuit against woman who blogged that he raped her
By TOM JACKMAN | The Washington Post | Published: August 11, 2017
Col. David "Wil" Riggins, after a highly-decorated Army career which included multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was on the verge of promotion to brigadier general in July 2013 when he got a phone call at the Pentagon from the Army Criminal Investigation Command to come in for a meeting. Once there, he learned that a blogger in Washington state had just accused him of raping her, when both were cadets at West Point in 1986. An investigation was underway.
Riggins waived his right to an attorney and immediately gave a statement denying any sexual assault of the woman, Susan Shannon of Everett, Washington. Shannon also cooperated with the CID investigation, which could not "prove or disprove Ms. Shannon's allegation she was raped," the CID report concluded. But in the spring of 2014, with the armed forces facing heavy criticism for their handling of sexual assault cases, Secretary of the Army John McHugh recommended removing Riggins from the list for promotion to general. Riggins promptly retired.
Then, Riggins sued Shannon for defamation, claiming that every aspect of her rape claim on the West Point campus was "provably false," and that she wrote two blog posts and a Facebook post "to intentionally derail [his] promotion" to brigadier general. During a six-day trial that ended Aug. 1, a jury in Fairfax County, Virginia, heard from both Riggins and Shannon at length. And after 2 1/2 hours of deliberation, they sided emphatically with Riggins, awarding him $8.4 million in damages, an extraordinary amount for a defamation case between two private citizens. The jury ordered Shannon to pay $3.4 million in compensatory damages for injury to his reputation and lost wages, and $5 million in punitive damages, "to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again," according to one of the jurors.
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/reti...d-her-1.482514