Women allege Marine harassment

Two civilian employees say complaints about officer were downplayed

WASHINGTON – Two civilian Marine Corps officials, including a senior coordinator for sexual assault response, allege that a Marine officer harassed them repeatedly and that their complaints have been downplayed by their leadership, according to interviews and documents obtained by USA TODAY.

Maj. David Cheek arranged to meet the women privately, and on five occasions he displayed to them that he had an erection through his shorts or pants, they say in interviews and complaints to Marine officials. The incidents occurred in 2013, but the women did not register complaints until a year later, saying they feared job-related retaliation. The officer supervised the women.

Sherry Yetter, now the sexual assault response coordinator for Marine Corps Recruiting Command, said she was discouraged from pursuing the case in 2014 when she was a limited-term employee. She complained again in July 2017 when Cheek was reassigned to the building where she works with her husband, a lieutenant colonel, and the other woman who filed a complaint.

“If the Marine Corps had done what it was supposed to do in 2014, he wouldn’t have been brought back to the same building,” Yetter, 49, said in an interview. “The commanding officer was notified in 2014. They had every chance to handle this in-house. The leadership chose not to act on it. It’s still happening. I still go to work in a hostile, unsafe work environment. My perception is that the Marine Corps simply doesn’t care.”

Traci Sharpe, 50, complained about Cheek to her boss but was told nobody would believe her.

“I was told I was an overweight black woman,” said Sharpe, who worked with the officer and Yetter in the Marines’ behavioral

“The commanding officer was notified in 2014. They had every chance to handle this in-house. The leadership chose not to act on it . ... My perception is that the Marine Corps simply doesn’t care.” Sherry Yetter

health program. “Who’d take my word over a field grade officer?”

Cheek declined to respond to questions placed through the Marine Corps and did not respond to written questions by email.

The Marine Corps, in a statement, acknowledged that Yetter’s complaint had been investigated but would not provide details of the findings. The Marines will consider releasing more information after receiving privacy act release forms, according to the statement.

“Sexual harassment devalues the individual and threatens unit cohesion,” Yvonne Carlock, a spokeswoman for Marine Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said in the statement. “It has no place in the Marine Corps.”

The military’s struggles with sexual harassment mirror those affecting powerful men in Hollywood, media and private industry. One key distinction for those in uniform is that military law allows for punishment, judicial and administrative, for behavior that affects order and discipline. Critics of the military justice system say such sanctions rarely are meted out, and more often victims become targets for retaliation.

In 2017, a sexual assault scandal involving Marines sharing nude photos of women service members on social media prompted Pentagon and congressional investigations. Marine Corps Commandant Robert Neller vowed changes and told senators, “I’m responsible. I’m the commandant. I own this.”