Navy confirms that only one senior officer has been punished for illegal Wi-Fi network on warship

The Navy said Friday it has disciplined just one additional petty officer — out of 18 sent to Captain’s Mast — and an officer from the USS Manchester, more than a year after catching a group of petty officers operating an illegal Wi-Fi connection. network on board the ship.

The Navy’s admission, which comes after the ship’s commander was sent to a special court-martial, suggests the majority of sailors involved avoided significant punishment despite concerns over the incident. Manchester Squadron Commander Captain Douglas Meagher said in the investigation findings that he had “never seen such heinous and egregious behavior by (a) Master Chief and an entire CPO Mess.”

Meagher ordered more than a dozen NCOs and one officer to receive extrajudicial punishment for their role in the Wi-Fi network. Commander Cindy Fields, a spokeswoman for the commander of Naval Surface Forces, confirmed to Military.com in a statement Friday that 18 chiefs and senior chiefs and one officer did indeed go to Captain’s Mast.

Read next: Marine Raiders ordered to stop wearing multicam uniforms to align elite unit with broader service

However, Fields’ statement on the actual penalties offered few details. She said an NCO received a “letter of instruction” and the officer received a “non-punitive letter of concern.” Citing the Privacy Act, Fields said the Navy would not release further details about any penalties.

Between the investigation and Fields’ update, the publicly acknowledged total of penalties imposed for the Wi-Fi system was four administrative letters and the loss of a future command for Manchester’s commander.

Moreover, there was no indication that the former commander, who led the operation and was sent to a special court-martial, had been removed from service.

Ahead of their April 2023 deployment, the littoral combat ship’s Gold crew petty officers, led by Command Master Chief Grisel Marrero, purchased a Starlink satellite internet system and installed it on the ship, the Navy investigation said. The sailors then ran a secret internet network aboard the ship while it was deployed – until it was finally discovered in August 2023.

Navy investigators found that the Chief’s Mess – a term commonly used to refer to all noncommissioned officers aboard a Navy ship or the fleet – attempted to “sophisticately” conceal the system by telling the ship’s commander and executive officer lie and change the name. Wi-Fi network to simply make it look like a printer, and hiding comments from sailors to the commander about the network, the investigation found.

As details began to leak, the Chief’s Mess changed the data to make it appear that they only used the system when the ship was in port, and eventually tried to have a senior petty officer be a “sacrificial party to accept responsibility” for the entire plan.

Both a Marine Criminal Investigative Service and the Navy-led investigation followed.

The Navy Times was the first to report on the plot and the investigation results.

The entire plot was made “heinous and egregious,” as Meagher said, by the fact that it was done by the entire cadre of senior sailors aboard the ship.

The commissioned officers of the Navy fulfill a special role in the service. Collectively, they have spent decades cultivating the idea within the service that they are the repositories of knowledge and tradition for the fleet and set the standard to which all sailors must adhere.

The Chief Petty Officer’s pledge notes that a chief must “lead by example” and “set performance standards.”

“A chief not only sets the standards, but is the enforcer of the standards,” Chief Noel Navidad said in a 2021 Navy story on the meaning of a chief petty officer.

19 Chiefs sentenced to non-judicial punishment

After the investigation was completed, Meagher established an aggressive plan for NCO accountability, which often went beyond what investigators recommended.

Because she was the leader, Command Master Chief Marrero – who was selected but not formally promoted to Master Chief – lost her promotion and qualification as a senior enlisted leader.

Navy court records show she was subsequently court-martialed and charged with dereliction of duty, making false statements and obstruction of justice. She was found guilty of all three charges and demoted from senior chief to chief petty officer in March.

Although Meagher noted in his letter that the Navy should consider removing Marrero from service after any other punishment the Navy deemed appropriate, there is no evidence to show that she was separated from the service.

The investigation found that 17 chiefs – 16 from the Manchester crew and one chief from an embarked helicopter squadron – paid for the unauthorized internet. Two more knew about it but didn’t pay. So it appears that Meagher ordered a total of 19 chiefs to undergo extrajudicial punishment.

While it is not immediately clear why Fields’ Friday totals differ from the numbers in the survey, she noted that her numbers do not include Marrero.

The recommendation from researchers was that only 11 of these NCOs should be punished with “letters of instruction” – a notation in their service record that would likely prevent them from being promoted but would allow them to continue serving.

Instead, Meagher ordered that “All E-8/E-7 who knew about, used, paid for, or helped conceal the unauthorized equipment will be subject to non-judicial punishment.”

For a petty officer, an officer’s masthead like Meagher could broadly be tied to the ship for a maximum of 60 days, 45 days of additional duty and two months at half pay. They cannot be demoted, but they can receive a reprimand, such as a “letter of instruction.”

However, given Fields’ statement that only one NCO received a “letter of instruction,” it appears that the result of Meagher’s intervention and insistence on sending everyone to non-judicial punishment was ultimately less punishment, not more.

While investigators argued that “no chief, other than (Marrero), should be notified of administrative separation,” Meagher dismissed them, saying the decision should be made after “any appropriate accountability action by the command.”

It is not known if any of the 18 chiefs the Navy has confirmed are going to the mast are now being investigated for separation.

Meagher also said he planned to organize a “CPO Mess recalibration summit” to “right the course of this Mess”. He noted that the summit would determine whether to “reshuffle” the entire Manchester Chief’s Mess as trust in this group of leaders, if left intact, may be irreparable.

Military.com asked the Navy if this “redistribution” was taking place, but we received no response.

‘Completely substandard’

While the Chief’s Mess was running the illicit network aboard the ship, the investigation revealed that two officers outside the ship’s top commanders received indications that something was amiss.

Both of their names are redacted in the investigation.

On August 15, 2023, approximately four months after the Chief’s Mess first set up the network, the Starshield system would be installed on the ship.

Ironically, that system is also operated by Starlink to provide satellite-based internet, but it is designed specifically for the military.

That day, a sailor whose name appears in the report approached the ship’s operations officer and “mentioned that the Starshield installers might find something that shouldn’t be there,” but “no additional question was asked by (the officer). ) about that comment.”

Investigators later said that after receiving this “unusual warning,” the operations officer should have been asked to “make further inquiries and conduct an investigation.”

Then, a few days later, on August 18, the ship’s combat systems officer went outside and seemed to have finally noticed the Starlink antenna that the chiefs had installed in mid-April.

It wouldn’t be until almost a week later, on August 24, that the ship’s commander, Cmdr. Colleen Moore learned about the dish’s discovery when the operations officer, who had now heard secondhand about the antenna’s discovery, came into her office to discuss the matter.

After that conversation, Moore called the combat systems officer to her cabin, and he admitted he knew about the antenna, but didn’t tell her because he was talking to mentors about it.

Researchers noted that “while additional time to gather more facts could have been appropriate, waiting a week to notify the CO is completely substandard.”

By all redactions, it is not clear what specific punishments the combat systems or operations officer received as a result of their inaction. Meagher’s letter noted that a sailor would be headed for non-judicial punishment “for dereliction of duty and conduct unbecoming an officer in this report”, and based on Fields’ statement the result was a “non- punitive letter of concern”. “

The maximum penalty an officer can receive for extrajudicial punishment of a captain like Meagher is 30 days’ restriction to a ship or base and a reprimand or admonition.

Another sailor, who investigators said was required to receive verbal advice “regarding strong support and a questioning attitude”, had his sentence upgraded by Meagher to a “non-punitive letter of concern”.

Even though letters of concern or other admonitions are nothing more than entries in an officer’s service record, they can often serve as an effective end to a career by making promotion extremely difficult.

Meagher spared Moore the full sentence, and it appears he let her serve the remainder of her time as commander of the Manchester Gold Crew. But he did issue her a Letter of Instruction and ordered that her recommendation to command a larger naval vessel be withdrawn.

Meagher noted that as commander, she not only had to deal with “abhorrent misconduct and conspiracy within the Chief’s Mess”, but also had to deal with a new and temporary executive officer after the relief of their predecessor for “committing a serious crime “.

In his letter, Moore’s boss said that as he considered her situation, he reflected on his own experiences while in her rank and, as a result, “(tempered) my expectations about what is expected of an officer in that stage of his career.” career when he faced these obstacles to success.”

“In my opinion, CDR Moore is capable of redemption and should be given the opportunity to recover from this event in a post-CDR command, afloat or ashore, flagstaff or an appropriate equivalent,” Meagher wrote.

Related: Navy chief demoted after installing an unauthorized satellite dish on a warship to access the internet

Story continues