A Navy admiral aboard a San Diego ship to oversee major training exercises last year spent hours watching online pornography on his government computer, an investigation found.
Rear Adm. Richard Williams, who was commander of Carrier Strike Group 15 at the time, admitted his conduct to investigators, saying, “I'm guilty; I didn't know it was this much,” according to a report made available following a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Williams was removed from his post. Usually that’s enough to end a high-level career, but the Navy also gave Williams a punitive letter of reprimand and found him guilty of violating orders and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
The one-star admiral implied that he didn’t start out with the intention of looking at sexual images during two short stays off the coast for the multinational exercise Dawn Blitz 2015, with Japan, and a large-scale certification exercise.
Williams was on the amphibious assault ship Boxer and watched hours of porn during that time. Later, he was on the ship for five days and again indulged in hours of porn.
He said he was drawn there by pop-up advertisements.
"It started as pop-ups, but then I navigated," Williams told investigators, admitting to breaching the computer security rules he had signed at previous times.
His computer violations were discovered during a routine security scan by Navy Information Operations Command in San Diego, the investigation said.
The Navy said Williams also looked at women on his government computer at North Island Naval Air Station, his regular office. The admiral denied watching porn on his office computer.
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