Standards of Conduct - 171

Harm rear-ended Mrs. Motley, an old lady, in heavy traffic when she suddenly slammed on her brakes while he was distracted by violent honking from the car behind him. When trading information he found that his insurance had just elapsed. The next day Raymond Harrick, her attorney, called offering him a $30K settlement for her whiplash injury. Harrick already had doctors letters and had filed in court even before H told them that he didn't have that kind of money. H asked Turner for help as his attorney but he refused. Bud was offended that he was not asked but helped anyway & found that Harrick used an insurance co accomplice who didn't send renewal notices; then, he set up an accident with actors and filed fraudulent whiplash lawsuits.

Lt Jeremy Duncan, a computer expert, slandered the SEC Defense and the Governor of Virginia claiming that the Psycoustics audio program used in Marines new helmets was defective. His CO wanted to court-martial him but the SECNAV wanted it handled quietly. M was assigned to investigate and used the helmet. She was convinced it was defective and arranged for a letter of reprimand and resignation. Civilian attorney Harlan Bradford downloaded a JAG boilerplate resignation from the web and got Duncan out of the Navy. Psycoustics filed a grievance when the navy pulled the plug on the helmet development claiming Duncan had sabotaged the 3D audio program while looking at their source code. M got very upset and Chegwidden assigned H to assist her in investigating Mad Hamster to "bring balance." M & H later found that the sabotage was true and he had stolen it for Bradford's "Mad Hamster" video game company. M tried to get Psycoustics to sue them but they wouldn't. She was angry but gave up. H didn't and discovered that Duncan was still on terminal leave so hadn't been discharged yet. He was brought back and court-martialed. The trial wasn't shown but T was shown standing w/ him for sentencing where he got 1yr hard labor, $50,000 fine (his signing bonus from Mad Hamster) and dishonorable discharge.

H received a Silver Star for saving the fleet from a nuclear missile by letting it chase him in his F14 until it ran out of fuel. T was shown receiving a medal as well but it was not mentioned. H noticed a "first computer" on Ms desk and she said it was for little AJs "fifth birthday" coming up in a couple of months. H had a flashback to when they had promised each other to have a baby together in "five years if neither of them were married." Then H had hallucinations and dreams of M being pregnant as well as Renee, Harriett, Coates and Singer. He got a post card from Renee saying that she was pregnant with twins. Tiner suggested that he "dodged a bullet with that one." When he finally discussed the "slip of the tongue" w/ M she thought it funny and asked if he wanted "out of the deal" or had thought that she wanted to "move up the timetable." He said "No." She said "you're a silly man."

Complications - 170

Bud went before the readiness board with testimony from C, H & T. (Unbelievably) Capt Masters asked if he could run or scramble up a ships ladder then said he shouldn't expect promotion with limited duty and that he would just be dead wood preventing another good officer from having a career. Until the board notified him by letter he was back at jag Line of Duty determinations, OP NAB instructions and updating case law- i.e. "grunt work." One claim for disability from Lt Fred Keefer caught Bs eye because it was for eye injury ostensibly from a North Korean Laser Gun. B went to the field to investigate, spoke to Dr Rayburn, ophthalmologist, who said his eyesight seemed to get better then got worse again after B starting delaying the proceedings. B did a stake out of Keefer's home and caught him looking into a laser in his garage. Buds letter finally came which accepted him to permanent limited duty.

M & H investigated the death of Krista Cuban, the 16 y/o daughter of Major General Chet Cubin, during surgery for thyroglossal duct cyst. It was declared an unexpected cardiac failure of unknown reasons but the General didn't believe it. He conducted his own "investigation" and believed the surgeon, Cdr John Bartel, to have acted negligently because he acted defensively trying to blame the anesthesiologist. Bartel had been telling his usual jokes disturbing Dr Cheryl Ashley at the time when Krista's blood pressure suddenly dropped and she went into ventricular fibrillation then died. A nurse recalled that Bartel had nicked the jugular vein and had spent time trying to blame Ashley instead of saving Krista. Then on the stand the nurse recanted her testimony saying that she had been intimidated by General Cubin and his threats. Ts motion for dismissal of charges was granted and General Cuban charged with undo command influence. Cuban testified that he had been trying to put the "fear of God" into them to find out what really had happened and Judge Helfman said she was going to send for court-martial. M asked for 24 hours to present "new evidence" (that she was hoping to find). M wondered if was really Bartel and went to hospital to check toxicology results. The duty pathologist said that the blood was normal except antibodies for hepatitis- which she had never had. M interrogated the original toxicologist, Dr Stodamyer, saying "would it surprise you that DNA test showed two persons blood in the sample" and asked what the Clindamycin level had been the first time he ran the sample. He finally admitted that he didn't want Ashley to suffer for being distracted by Bartel when she pushed the drug in fast instead of letting it drip in slowly. He diluted her blood sample with another persons blood and ran the test again with a lower result. With the new evidence the judge didn't want to rule and asked H and M to "work it out."

Singer was granted full maternity leave as she had decided not to have an abortion. H wanted to talk to her and grabbed her elbow when she started to walk away from him. Bud saw their talk. She finally relented to talk with H at Benzinger's and taunted H by ordering beer and saying she was going to take up smoking. She denied that the baby was Serge's but he didn't believe her. She said she was going to put it up for adoption upsetting H who told her to call Serge and talk to him. H said that he didn't want another Rabb to live life without knowing his father and asked her to give the baby to him. She said "no" H said "over my dead body" then "I'm not done with you yet" after she had walked out. Their discussion was overheard by a woman at another table and Coates.