Navy to boot 34 in long-running reactor-school cheating ring

Adm. John Richardson, director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, addresses the media on the Navy’s investigation of a cheating ring that operated for several years undetected at a nuclear-power training site.
Adm. John Richardson, director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, addresses the media on the Navy’s investigation of a cheating ring that operated for several years undetected at a nuclear-power training site.

WASHINGTON -- At least 34 sailors are being kicked out of the Navy for their roles in a cheating ring that operated undetected for at least seven years at a nuclear-power training site, and 10 others are under criminal investigation, the admiral in charge of the Navy's nuclear reactors program said.

The number of accused and the duration of cheating are greater than was known when the Navy announced in February that it had discovered cheating on qualification exams by an estimated 20 to 30 sailors seeking to be certified as instructors at the nuclear training unit in Charleston, S.C. Students there are trained in nuclear reactor operations to prepare for service on any of the Navy's 83 nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.

Neither the instructors nor the students are involved in handling nuclear weapons.

Although the cheating is believed to have been confined to a single unit in Charleston and apparently was not known to commanding officers, the misconduct had been happening since at least 2007, according to Adm. John Richardson, director of naval reactors. The exact start of the cheating was not pinpointed.

"There was never any question" that the reactors were being operated safely, he said.

Richardson said that at the outset of the investigation he was unconvinced the cheating was confined to a single training unit. But he now believes it had not spread, which was one reason the ring managed to operate so long without being discovered.

In addition to the 34 enlisted sailors who were removed from the nuclear power program and are being administratively discharged from the Navy, two more who were implicated as "minimal" participants had their noncriminal punishments suspended because of their "strong potential for rehabilitation."

Thirty-two other sailors were implicated by investigators but later exonerated by Richardson, and he gave one officer a verbal warning. The officer, whom Richardson declined to identify by name or rank, was not accused of participating in the cheating. He was faulted for "deficiencies" in his oversight of the exam program, but Richardson said it was not severe enough to merit punishment.

The Navy investigation also concluded that commanders were not directly at fault. "It was not the result of 'wishful blindness,'" it said.

Richardson said 10 more sailors are believed to have been "at the center" of the cheating ring and remain under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Unlike an Air Force exam-cheating scandal that came to light in January at a Montana base that operates land-based nuclear-armed missiles, the sailors involved in the Navy cheating ring had no responsibility for nuclear weapons.

Navy investigators did, however, find one key link between the two episodes. Their investigation report said media reports about exam cheating at Malmstrom Air Force Base were "a triggering event" for the unidentified sailor in Charleston who alerted superiors to cheating on Feb. 2.

Richardson said he met individually with each of the accused and heard at least two common themes: a belief that there was little risk of getting caught and a work environment at the nuclear training site that created stresses and pressures on the approximately 300 sailors who serve as instructors.

Richardson said he is taking steps to ease the pressures and to strengthen ethics training.

He said the accused in Charleston fell into two main categories: sailors who cheated on the tests, and sailors who enabled the cheating by providing answers in advance to others taking the test and tipping them off about what test they would be given.

Richardson called the latter group of 10 sailors the ringleaders and said their offenses are considered more serious because they had facilitated the illicit transfer of classified test answers.

An extensive investigation ordered by Richardson and led by Rear Adm. Kenneth Perry found that an electronic master file of "engineering watch supervisor" tests and answers was illegally removed from a Navy computer "sometime before 2007." Investigators failed to identify who took it or exactly when.

The set of test and answer keys became known among the cheaters as the "Pencil Files."

These files were secretly passed via personal email accounts, compact disks, thumb drives and other nonofficial electronic systems. Richardson said the Pencil Files contained all 600 answers to questions on five sets of tests.

Also, a "Pencil Number" was passed to sailors to tell them which of the five exams they would be given.

"The result was a deliberate scheme to cheat," the report said. It found no evidence of espionage.

Exam security was weak. For example, investigators found that the five tests were used in a predictably rotating order and the questions had not changed significantly since 2004 even though written rules require them to be changed frequently.

Navy criminal investigators interviewed four people thought to know the origin of the Pencil Files. Three of them denied involvement in the scheme, and the fourth invoked his right to remain silent and requested an attorney.

"Thus, no further evidence of the origin of the 'Pencil Files' was obtained," the investigation report said.

A Section on 08/21/2014

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