Call girl allowed to retire at O-4
By Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Nov 28, 2008 8:08:26 EST
Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Dickinson has retired from the Navy with no reduction in rank, despite her admission that she moonlighted as a high-end prostitute for Washington powerbrokers while assigned to the Naval Academy, a Navy spokeswoman confirmed.
In federal court in April, Dickinson testified about her stint as an escort at the trial of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, a California businesswoman known as the “D.C. Madam.” Dickinson said she charged $275 for a 90-minute session, typically keeping $130 for herself and sending $145 to Palfrey.
A Navy spokeswoman confirmed Dickinson’s Oct. 31 retirement after it was first reported by the Web site militarycorruption.com.
The 38-year-old divorced mother of three enlisted in the Navy after high school in Tennessee and served as an aviation electronics technician third class. She was later commissioned in 1993. She served as the Naval Academy food services officer, responsible for feeding 4,000 midshipmen, and occasionally taught a Navy leadership class in the academy’s ethics department.
In April, the Navy fired her from her job at the Navy Supply Corps School in Georgia, gave her a letter of reprimand and forced her to go on indefinite leave. A Navy official at the time said the Navy could give her a reduction in rank if it determined that her service as a lieutenant commander was not honorable.
Dickinson’s attorney, Jonathan Gladstone, said federal prosecutors granted Dickinson immunity earlier this year in exchange for her testimony. That agreement prevented naval authorities from taking Dickinson to court-martial, but provided no guarantees regarding the terms of her retirement.
“This is a very unhappy case for just about everyone who it touched,” Gladstone told Navy Times. “I’m glad to see that efforts were made to not make things any worse than they had to be.”
