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News| Sports | Navy Quarterback Charged With Rape

Posted Feb. 22, 2006 – Officials at the U.S. Naval Academy said Wednesday that Navy's star quarterback has been charged with raping a female student in her dorm room. 
Documents obtained by the Baltimore Sun show that Lamar Owens, a 22-year-old senior from Savannah, Ga., was charged last month with attacking the female midshipman at Bancroft Hall dormitory in Annapolis. Since the alleged incident happened on the academy's campus, Owens was charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

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“These charges are accusations, and Midshipman Owens is presumed innocent until proven otherwise,” academy spokesman Cmdr. Rod Gibbons said. "He remains assigned to the Naval Academy and will continue to attend class, performing other duties normally assigned to midshipmen pending results of the investigation."  

A hearing, similar to a grand jury case, will be held to determine if there is sufficient evidence to go ahead with the case, Gibson said.  

The woman's identity has not been released.

Earlier this month, a senior at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., was charged with sexually assaulting six female cadets in the campus barracks and other sites. Webster M. Smith, 22, a linebacker on the academy's football team, was charged under military law with rape, assault, indecent assault and sodomy, school officials said. Smith insists he is innocent, his lawyer has said.

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