US Navy Commander charged with sexual assault while travelling in India in 2019

Cmdr. Edward Forrest Hill, a naval aviator attached to the command overseeing manpower readiness for the United States Navy faces court-martial on charges of sexually assaulting a woman in 2019.

Hill, a veteran officer with 16 years of experience in the Navy, was near or in Bangalore, India, at the time of the alleged assault, according to a charge sheet obtained by a US media report. It is not clear whether he was traveling for work or if he was off-duty.

Hill was assigned to Chief of Naval Personnel Support out of Arlington, Virginia, when he allegedly committed a number of nonconsensual sexual acts, such as penetrating her with his finger and forcing oral sex, upon a woman whose name is redacted in the report. While the alleged incident happened on August 4, 2019, Hill was charged on October 28, 2020.

The accused is set to appear in court at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., on May 20 for a motions hearing on the sexual assault charge.

Hill is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who was commissioned in 2002. He has served at numerous helicopter aviation and test commands and graduated from Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland, in 2012. His most recent aviation unit was Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 35, out of North Island, Calif., which flies MH-60R Seahawks.

Prior to joining Chief of Naval Personnel Support in 2018, Hill completed a tour in the Legislative Fellows Program in Washington, D.C.

A published biography from that tour adds that he previously served as a squadron department head “who was responsible for the integration of manned and unmanned aircraft onboard littoral combat ship [and] an experimental test pilot who has deployed numerous times and has logged over 2,000 hours in 29 different aircraft.”

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