Midshipman Accused of Sex Assault

Woman Tells Court Man Was Drunk

Crying and wiping her face, a Naval Academy sophomore testified yesterday that she awoke one night last fall to find a classmate atop her on her bunk.

Midshipman Mark A. Calvanico, a junior whom the woman was considering dating, had been drinking and had already made two visits to her room in Bancroft Hall early Oct. 14 to talk, she testified. But on the third visit, she said, he pinned her arms down.

"I was telling him to get off me," said the woman, testifying at a hearing at the Washington Navy Yard.

"He raped me -- what do you want me to say?" she said, her voice breaking.

Calvanico, 21, a junior from Secaucus, N.J., is accused of rape, indecent assault, indecent acts and conduct unbecoming an officer. Yesterday's hearing will help determine whether he faces a court-martial.

Calvanico has denied having sexual intercourse with the woman, and his attorney said that while the students had some physical contact that night, it was consensual.

"She was trying to commit to a long-term relationship, he's trying to make out with her," attorney Michael Waddington said during the hearing. "This case rises and falls on the lack of physical and forensic evidence and the lack of witness credibility," he said later.

The Washington Post does not identify possible victims of sexual assault.

The woman's roommate, who was in the room at the time of the incident, testified that she saw the two kissing earlier and heard them arguing, but did not hear a struggle.

A week before the incident, Calvanico sent the woman a digital photograph of his penis via his cellphone. The Navy charges that the act constituted "conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman."

The woman did not deny that she requested the photograph. "I knew what I was getting," she said.

The defense later pointed to that statement. "She, a 20-year-old girl, is asking the guy to send a picture of his penis," Waddington told the court. "Maybe that's what kids do these days, but that says a lot about her involvement."