FORT BELVOIR, Va. (AP) — The wife of the Army’s former top enlisted man testified Tuesday that she was shocked and confused when a woman who had been her close friend told the media that Sgt. Maj. Gene McKinney had grabbed and propositioned her.
Wilhemina McKinney said she accompanied her husband on a business trip in April 1996 and found Brenda Hoster’s claim months later that McKinney had pressured her for sex during that trip hard to fathom.
McKinney said she was in a room just down the hall from Hoster’s hotel room, where the incident allegedly occurred, and detected nothing amiss.
The next day, Hoster, then an Army sergeant major and an aide to McKinney, behaved no differently, Wilhemina McKinney said.
Hoster remained friendly with both McKinneys afterward, Wilhemina McKinney testified.
McKinney said Hoster never mentioned any encounter with her husband before she went public with her accusations a year ago.
Gene McKinney has been accused by Hoster and five other women of harassing or intimating them sex.
Gene McKinney’s lawyers claim all six women are lying. He faces up to 55 years in prison if convicted of 19 counts, which range from adultery to obstruction of justice.
McKinney, 47, held the appointed post of sergeant major of the Army until last fall, when he was removed in preparation for his trial.