Third Midshipman Faces Rape Charges

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A third Navy football player has been charged with raping a female midshipman at an off-campus party this summer, police said yesterday.Shaka Amin Martin was charged with second-degree rape and second-degree assault, Anne Arundel County police spokesman Charles Ravenell said.Martin, 21, of Danville, Va., was arrested Monday on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, said Cmdr. Bill Spann, a spokesman for the school. Martin was being held yesterday afternoon at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center on $50,000 bond, a jail official said.The charges stem from a June 29 party at the Arnold home of a midshipman.The 20-year-old victim said she had become intoxicated at the party and passed out in one of the bedrooms. When she awoke, she found herself being sexually assaulted by two men, and pushed away the men, who then left the home, the unidentified woman told police.Two other Navy football players, Cordrea Brittingham of Berlin and Arion Williams of Detroit, both 21, were arrested July 3 on charges of second-degree rape and second-degree sexual assault. The victim indentified the two suspects to police, authorities said.Defense attorneys for the two have said the facts of the case are “hotly contested,” and suggested the woman was neither heavily intoxicated nor unconscious.Four people who attended the party voluntarily gave blood samples to investigators, including Martin, said William Roessler, Anne Arundel County deputy state’s attorney. Martin’s DNA matched samples collected in the investigation, he said.“We had a situation where the evidence indicated that she was unconcious and we wanted to use the DNA to test any possible suspects whether she knew about them or not,” Roessler said.Martin, a starting linebacker for Navy, was suspended indefinitely from the football team yesterday by head coach Charlie Weatherbie, Spann said.Brittingham, a running back from Berlin, Md., and Williams, a cornerback from Detroit, also have been suspended indefinitely.Academy officials said the three defendants, all juniors, remain members of the brigade of midshipmen while the case is pending, Spann said.Brittingham and Williams are free on bond and have returned to classes at the academy.All 4,000 midshipmen live in one building, the world’s largest dormitory, and all eat lunch at the same time. Spann said the academy is complying with the court’s order to keep the two defendants away from the alleged victim.The Naval Academy has been rocked in recent years by a series of scandals involving drug use, car thefts and sexual assaults on female midshipmen. Several midshipmen have been expelled for sexual misconduct or fraternization.