Navy Investigating More Than 100 'Secretly Shot' Sexual Videos of US Troops Uploaded to Adult Website
This story contains descriptions of explicit sexual material.
The Navy is investigating how someone managed to upload more than 100 nonconsensual sexual videos of service members from ships and facilities at the service's base in Guam several years ago, recently unsealed court documents reveal.
The documents say the Naval Criminal Investigative Service became aware of the videos, some of which contained names and ranks, on Jan. 8, 2020, and by Jan. 15 investigators had found around 102 videos uploaded to the website Pornhub.com, one of the biggest porn sites in the world.
"Many of the videos -- which included audio -- appeared to depict various U.S. military members masturbating in bathroom stalls to pornographic materials viewed on electronic devices," a warrant application filed with the federal court in Guam alleged.
A warrant filed in September 2020 sought details about the identity of a user named "playguy148" who was responsible for uploading around 102 videos to Pornhub.
The warrant application had been sealed by the court until last week, and the development was first reported by the Pacific Daily News, a newspaper that covers the U.S. territory.
The court documents say that the videos were secretly shot from either above, below or through holes in bathroom stalls, and several of the videos "were titled with the rank and last name of the depicted victim, such as '[U.S. NAVY RANK] [LAST NAME].'"
As a result, investigators were able to determine that "two primary Guam-based United States Naval commands contained the greatest number of identifiable victims: the USS Emory S. Land and the USS Frank Cable."
Investigators say that the videos also appeared to have been shot in the men's restroom of the Liberty Center aboard Naval Base Guam and "aboard United States Navy vessels."
A Navy official told Military.com that both the Land and Cable have mixed-gender crews of about 900 sailors and 150 civilians.
The court document says that Pornhub took down the videos shortly after being contacted by NCIS.
Military.com reached out to NCIS for any information about the investigation but did not receive a reply in time for publication.
The warrant application said that NCIS felt that there is probable cause to believe that the behavior violated federal laws against video voyeurism and illegal interception of communications.
The allegations bear a resemblance to the Marines United scandal that rocked that service around 2017 and involved active-duty Marines swapping nude photos of service members through a private Facebook group.
The resulting fallout led to more than 100 prosecutions and, after a year, 11 courts-martial.
Related: 11 Troops Kicked Out After Court-Martial in Wake of Marines United Scandal
