Law and Order
Register
Advertisement

Lieutenant Commander William Taverts was an officer in the United States Coast Guard, who used his position to rape female personnel and ordered some of his officers to gang rape Ensign Amelia Albers.

History[]

As mentioned by Vincent Albers, Taverts was helped by Albers through his career.

When ENS Amelia Albers becomes a junior officer at Coast Guard Station Sheep's Head Bay, LDCR Taverts continually tried to get her to sleep with him but she refused; when she refused he told her that nobody says no to a lieutenant and devises a plan to rape her. When Albers and three other officers go on leave and have fun in a bar, Taverts meets them after they leave the bar where he rapes her while the one of his officers, who was gay, held her arms down and Taverts then had the two other officers rape her. When Captain Donald Cragen and the SVU detectives arrive at Sheep's Head Bay to investigate what happened to Albers, Taverts claims that none of his officers did anything to her and he hinders the detectives investigation of Albers assault. When Albers finally reveals that Taverts raped her and that he got her fellow officers to participate in the assault, they are arrested.

But before the case can go to trial, LCDR Taverts has military police officers arrest Albers because one of the officers who sexually assaulted her was married but eventually A.D.A. Rafael Barba the SVU detectives are able to get her released on her own recognizance. In court, LCDR Taverts and the officers who raped Albers are defended by John Buchanan, who claims that the sex was consensual and that she only said she was raped because she was embarrassed. Taverts then goes up to ENS Albers' father, Admiral Vincent Albers, and claims that his daughter was not suited to be in the military to the point where ADM Albers punches him in the face, which knocks him to the floor. Eventually, LCDR Taverts and the officers are convicted for the rape of ENS Albers. (SVU: "Military Justice")

Advertisement