Naval Academy midshipman acquitted in sex assault case

By Tom Ramstack WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A judge acquitted a former Naval Academy football player on Thursday of sexually assaulting a drunken female midshipman, one of a number of sexual misconduct cases roiling the U.S. military. Midshipman Joshua Tate, a senior from Nashville, Tennessee, had been accused of assaulting the 22-year-old woman at an alcohol-fueled off-campus party in April 2012. Marine Colonel Daniel Daugherty found Tate, who resigned from the academy on Thursday, not guilty of aggravated sexual assault after two days of testimony by more than a dozen witnesses at Washington's Navy Yard. Asked by reporters how much of the trial had been motivated by the military wanting to show it was tough on sexual misconduct, Tate's attorney Jason Ehrenberg said: "All of it." "That's the system we have.