Courtesy WILL Interactive

A screen grab from "Team-Bound," the interactive video game used by the Army to educate soldiers about sexual assault.

The Army is using an interactive video game to train soldiers how to prevent sexual assaults in the ranks, and the technology has proven so popular, the branch just ordered a sequel, according to a spokesman for the company behind the video.

But advocates for military-rape survivors vilify the video — and the philosophy behind it — as “a waste of taxpayer dollars,” an “affront to victims of sexual assault” and a tool “of limited value.”

Titled “Team-Bound,” the program streams laptop-generated scenarios, allowing users to assume the roles of a male or female specialist who witness on-base sexual harassments and eventually — at a bar favored by soldiers — the warning signs of an alcohol-induced date rape. Players must choose multiple responses throughout the episodes then watch the consequences of either intervening or ignoring the observed behaviors.

If the video’s users pick passive reactions, an intoxicated female private is eventually raped in an Army barracks after leaving the bar with an aggressive, male private. In the video, the victim is shown ultimately reporting the attack then opting to leave the service, prompting an Army official to tell viewers: “A life damaged, a career ended, a unit falling apart. But it didn’t have to be this way. All you had to do was stand up and be strong.”

Word of the Army's requested sequel — currently in production and scheduled to film this summer — follows Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s decision on Monday to crack down on generals who now possess the power to overturn sex-assault sentences rendered by military juries.

Courtesy WILL Interactive

Screen grab from "Team-Bound" video game.

A spokeswoman for the Army’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Response Prevention (SHARP) Program did not immediately respond to emailed questions about the cost, content or implementation of "Team-Bound" or its sequel.

But a spokesman for WILL Interactive, the Maryland company behind both videos, said: “As part of its overall program to address and eliminate sexual assault, the military commissioned WILL Interactive to develop ‘interactive video simulations’ that combine behavior modification role-playing with a video game element.”

In 2010, the Army “engaged” WILL Interactive to produce “Team-Bound,” said Caleb Barnhart, an account executive with New York-based BLJ Worldwide, an outside communications firm employed WILL Interactive.

“The program was so well received by service members and Army administrators that they asked WILL to develop a sequel,” Barnhart said.

'Limited value'
The original episodes were written after focus groups consisting of Army members suggested several real-life scenarios, said Marc Smrikarov, a vice president of BLJ Worldwide.

In one scene, five Army buddies wearing civilian clothes arrive together at a nightclub where several female soldiers are relaxing, also wearing casual outfits. A narrator says: “Loud music, cold beer, hot girls, game on.” The actors then portray various behaviors, each triggered by users’ responses. Information about the Army’s sexual harassment policies, definitions, and how to prevent such behavior — and, ultimately, stop a rape — is offered throughout that segment and others.

Courtesy WILL Interactive

Screen grab from "Team-Bound" video game.

But the program is being slammed by some experts on the topic. 

“For decades, leaders in our military have thought that they can end the epidemic of sexual assault in the military simply through training programs, like the ‘Ask Her When She’s Sober’ campaign,” said Nancy Parrish, president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group for military sex-assault victims. “This video game is another example of that line of thinking. Not only is it a waste of taxpayer dollars, it is affront to victims of sexual assault.

“Rape and sexual assault in the military is often about the abuse of power. It is a violent crime and should be treated as such. According to the DOD’s own statistics, the majority of these crimes are committed by an individual of higher rank,” Parrish said. The video “continues to portray rape and sexual assault as a misunderstanding of a social situation — (as with) ‘Ask Her When She's Sober’ — and places the emphasis on the victim and bystanders to intervene in an assault, instead of placing the responsibility squarely on the perpetrator.”

A leader of the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) — which seeks to curb sexual discrimination, harassment and assault inside the military — similarly criticized “Team-Bound” as an example of the Army trying to teach its way out of the sexual-assault problem rather than focusing on disciplining and removing offenders. 

“My take is that it’s of limited value to focus on behavioral aspects (without) addressing the role of institutional deterrents,” said Rachel Natelson, the legal and programs director at SWAN. “Outside of the military, companies can’t simply ‘train’ their employees not to commit offenses — they also have to correct offenses once they occur or they’ll be held liable under the law.”

Related:

• Defense Secretary Hagel demands rape reform in military
• Guidelines protect sex assault victims seeking security clearance
• Training aims to improve how military sexual assaults are investigated
• Senate panel members suggest overhaul of military justice system 
• Accuser in Air Force sexual assault case 'frustrated' at overturned verdict
• Civil Rights Commission urged to order audit of military sex-assault cases

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday cracked down on generals who now possess the power to overturn sex assault sentences, ordering the first substantive shift of his tenure in how the military handles rape convictions in the ranks.

But victims’ advocates quickly lashed the move as merely a meager tweak that fails to meet mounting calls to remove all sex-assault investigations from the chain of command and to inject civilian oversight into a controversial system of justice further exposed by the recent Aviano case. 

Hagel directed the Pentagon's General Counsel to strip the authority of commanding generals to void military court convictions. The Pentagon must seek fresh Congressional legislation to rewrite a section of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) to make the planned change legal.

The decision follows a firestorm ignited last month when Air Force Lt. General Craig Franklin overturned the sex-assault conviction of Air Force Lt. Col. James Wilkerson, an F-16 combat pilot. Wilkerson was court martialed and convicted by a military jury in the assault of a civilian woman at the U.S. Air Base in Aviano, Italy. He was sentenced to one year in the brig and booted from the Air Force.

But using current UCMJ laws, Franklin reversed that jury's ruling for apparent lack of evidence. Wilkerson was subsequently released from jail, reinstated and assigned to a staff job at an Arizona air base.

The head of the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN), which seeks to help women serve without discrimination, harassment or assault, said she is "encouraged" by Hagel's proposal to reform a portion of the UCMJ, particularly "in light of the perceived travesty of justice in the recent Aviano case." But she added that the modification is not enough.

"The Department of Defense has effectively acknowledged that commanders currently have undue influence on post-trial decision-making," said Anu Bhagwati, executive director of SWAN and a former Marine Corps captain. "However, post-trial review is only one component of the command-driven system that currently governs how military crimes are handled.

"Unless pre-trial decision-making around investigation and prosecution of offenses is also removed from the hands of commanders and given to impartial prosecutors, military criminal justice will remain a lesser form of justice, both for victims and defendants."

Measures 'fall short'
Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group for military sex-assault victims, called the generals’ current prerogative to toss out sex-assault convictions "only one part of much larger fundamental problems."

"Today’s proposed changes from the Pentagon fall short of the necessary fixes to end the epidemic of sexual assault in the military," said Nancy Parrish, president of Protect Our Defenders. "The military has always contended that incidences like Aviano are extremely rare and we have never disputed that. But, we have always contended that the more insidious problem is that convening authorities can unilaterally lessen sentences, and today’s announcement does not change this.

"Commanders now have the power to reduce any sentence for any reason or no reason," Parrish added. "Under the current proposal ... this will not change. In the Aviano case, rather than setting Lt. Col. Wilkerson’s sexual assault conviction aside, Lt. General Franklin could have simply reduced the sentence to no punishment.

"For the system to be legitimate — the reporting, investigation and adjudication must be taken completely out of the chain of command if we are to avoid another case like Aviano," she added.

Under UCMJ, Hagel and Congress are powerless to change Franklin's decision to overturn the conviction of Lt. Col. Wilkerson.

In a written statement released Monday, Hagel said he is seeking to eliminate the ability of commanders who are the "convening authority" to override convictions for sexual assault or other serious crimes.

Defendants still will retain the right to appeal convictions through the military judicial system, Hagel said. He also wants to require the convening authority to put into writing any changes they may make in sentencing for major offenses.

"From the survivors we talk with," Parrish said, "a written explanation as to why their perp's sentence was lessened unilaterally will be of no comfort to them. This still constitutes an extraordinary power resting in the hands of one person with no equivalent in the civilian criminal justice system."

Related: 

• Guidelines protect sex assault victims seeking security clearance
• Training aims to improve how military sexual assaults are investigated
• Senate panel members suggest overhaul of military justice system 
• Accuser in Air Force sexual assault case 'frustrated' at overturned verdict
• Civil Rights Commission urged to order audit of military sex-assault cases

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released guidelines Friday that protect victims of sexual assault who fear that coming forward for help or counseling may jeopardize their security clearance.

Clapper's new guidance now mandates that someone seeking mental health counseling cannot be the sole reason that individual is denied security clearance.

So-called "Question 21" on the standard security clearance questionnaire has been criticized in recent months as discouraging victims of sexual assault from seeking help, spurring a long review of its use by the intelligence community.

Victims may now answer “No” to the question, which asks if the respondent has consulted a health care professional regarding an emotional or mental health condition or if he or she was similarly hospitalized.

This language will be added to the question:

"Please respond to this question with the following additional instruction: Victims of sexual assault who have consulted with a health care professional regarding an emotional or mental health condition during this period strictly in relation to the sexual assault are instructed to answer No."

“The U.S. Government recognizes the critical importance of mental health and supports proactive management of mental health conditions, wellness and recovery,” Clapper said in a release.

“The guidance which was issued on an interim basis pending formal revision of the policy, applies to all executive branch departments and agencies,” the release said.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issues guidance for all 17 of the agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community.

Related:

• Training aims to improve how military sexual assaults are investigated
• Senate panel members suggest overhaul of military justice system 
• Accuser in Air Force sexual assault case 'frustrated' at overturned verdict
• Civil Rights Commission urged to order audit of military sex-assault cases

U.S. Army

Russell W. Strand, chief in the education and training division at the Army's Military Police School, gives a presentation about suspect behavior to a special unit victims course at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri.

As the military wrestles with an alarming number of sexual assaults — an issue former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called "an affront to the basic American values we defend" — the Department of Defense has adopted a novel technique that fundamentally changes the way investigations are handled.

Hundreds of investigators and prosecutors across all military branches have participated in a special victims unit course at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri that focuses on a unique forensic interviewing technique designed to elicit detailed descriptions of an attack. 

With traditional methods, this “psychophysiological” evidence has previously been difficult to obtain from both the victim and suspect, but can often break open an otherwise difficult case in which there is little or no physical evidence.

The technique was developed by Russell W. Strand, a former special agent with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and current chief in the education and training division at the Army’s Military Police School. Strand began evaluating sexual assault training in 2004 as numerous reports of rape in combat zones and at home became public.

He soon discovered that law enforcement, both military and civilian, expected victims to recount their trauma blow by blow, with precise details that could convince any skeptical jury or judge.

That may seem like conventional wisdom, but Strand frequently found victims rarely had such clarity. He consulted experts, immersed himself in neurobiological research, and found that the expectation doesn’t align with the science of trauma and memory.

In the midst of an assault, the brain does not capture every moment of trauma as if it were recording a film. The pre-frontal cortex can "shut down" or become severely impaired. As a result, many victims can’t provide a contextual or linear account of the event, but fragmentary memories, perhaps the tone of the suspect's voice or, when a sense of defeat has set in, a recollection of the way a lamp looked as she or he was being assaulted. In interviews with investigators, Strand said, the lack of a victim’s ability to recall specifics quickly sowed doubt.

“We started looking at that (research) and started looking at what kind of evidence we gather in a sexual assault,” Strand said. “We weren’t collecting the right data.”

Start with memories, not at the beginning
Strand’s technique, which he has termed the forensic experiential trauma interview (FETI), begins with an investigator expressing empathy toward the victim in order to establish trust. What comes next is not a set of rapid-fire questions about the assault. Strand believes that approach, long used by law enforcement, pressures and confuses the victim. Instead, investigators are trained to simply ask what the victim is able to remember about the experience.

Asking the victim to “start at the beginning” — another hallmark of traditional police work  — forces the victim to try to retrieve memories that may not have been encoded in the first place, which can lead to inaccurate or distorted recollections. Some victims may then doubt the memories they do have while investigators wonder if he or she is making up the assault. 

What’s more important, according to Strand, is eliciting the victim’s sensory memories, which helps to create a three-dimensional picture of the attack. It also allows the victim to relate the experience in a way that makes sense and yields vital information that can be presented to a jury.

Dr. Jim Hopper, a clinical instructor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, says Strand is teaching good clinical skills for interviewing traumatized people, adapted for an investigative context. Hopper is a guest lecturer for the course, and teaches the effects of sexual assault on the brain.

Lori Jones, a civilian special agent stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, said that once she was trained in the interviewing technique, she was able to collect much better evidence. If a victim describes feeling “frozen” during an attack, for example, Jones is able to understand that as tonic immobility, a physiological response to terror or trauma that often leaves a person numb, starring in a fixed or unfocused manner and unable to move or cry out.

The interview technique can also lead to unwitting admissions of guilt by attackers. When asked to describe a victim's behavior, suspects and victims have recounted the same details, Jones said.

“One of the biggest blessings in FETI has been being able to take forward an investigation with no tangible evidence,” said Jones. “I have the ability to take this to my supervisor and say, ‘This is what the victim is articulating, these were the things she felt her body doing ... and he saw her doing what she was doing.’”

This critical information has helped Jones educate commanders and prosecutors who falsely assume that a victim’s lack of resistance or inability to immediately call the police, for example, is evidence of lying.

Joanne Archambault, a former investigator and executive director of the nonprofit training, education and policy organization End Violence Against Women International (EVAWI), said that evidence gathered by techniques like FETI are essential in conducting a thorough investigation. The interview is a "big piece of the puzzle" that helps an agent corroborate a victim's account.

"Victims are much more likely to talk to us when they’re being given an opportunity to provide a narrative in their own terms," Archambault said. "You can’t get to prosecution and conviction without that."

'Visionary' technique
There are other investigation techniques that attempt to obtain sensory details from victims, but integrating scientific research on how a victim's brain responds to trauma is a unique element that has won Strand accolades. Last year, EVAWI gave Strand its Visionary Award.

Archambault, who investigated or supervised 10,000 sexual assault cases at the San Diego Police Department before retiring in 2002, said that law enforcement often has little or no training in interviewing victims of traumatic crimes. As a result, the experience can feel like an interrogation. She has observed a FETI training class, which Strand also teaches to civilian police departments, and says the focus on about trauma and its effect on memory is novel. 

“In a nutshell,” she said, “he’s been dedicated to making improvements in a culture.”

The struggle to understand and address sexual assaults in the military has been very public. Last week, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee excoriated military leaders for permitting an environment that enables sexual assault.

In 2011, 3,192 sexual assault reports were filed, but the Department of Defense says the number is closer to 19,000 based on anonymous surveys of active-duty service members conducted in 2010. Of the 3,192 reports, only cases on 1,518 subjects were brought forward for disciplinary review. 

The Army tracks the number of cases brought forward by prosecutors; anecdotally, Jones said it appears FETI has helped increase this number, but the Army's Criminal Investigation Command did not have those statistics readily available. Those familiar with the technique are hopeful that it is changing pervasive attitudes and assumptions about victim behavior.

In a statement to NBC News, Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., who chairs a caucus on military sexual assault, called FETI a “step toward more successful investigations and prosecutions.”

The Department of Defense has incorporated the course as part of its multi-pronged approach to prevent sexual assault in the military. "When one does occur, effective processes and trained professionals must be in place to support victims and ensure delivery of justice," Cynthia O. Smith, a spokeswoman for the DoD, told NBC News.

Since 2009, 721 special agents and prosecutors from every branch of the military have attended the training. Another 315 are scheduled to complete the course by the end of this September, and DoD has funded more than 400 seats at the course through fiscal year 2017.

Strand says he and his team encountered some early resistance from investigators accustomed to the traditional interviewing technique, but that dissent has since ebbed.

“We’re over the (point) where more people get it than don’t,” he said. 

Rebecca Ruiz is a reporter based in the Bay Area.

Related:

• Senate panel members suggest overhaul of military justice system 
• Accuser in Air Force sexual assault case 'frustrated' at overturned verdict
• Civil Rights Commission urged to order audit of military sex-assault cases
• Reported sex assaults leap 23 percent at US military academies
• Sex-assault victims in military say brass often ignore pleas for justice

The investigation of accused military rapists should be removed from the chain of command and handed to trained prosecutors, perhaps installing an era of civilian oversight within the armed forces justice system, according to senators who Wednesday heard testimony from three ex-service members who were sexually assaulted while on duty. 

The push for an overhaul in how the military handles reported rapes in its ranks was repeatedly underscored during the hearing by references to the recent decision by a top Air Force general to overturn a military jury’s verdict against a fellow pilot convicted of raping a woman who had been assigned to a hospital at Aviano Air Base in Italy.

The Aviano ruling — which set aside a one-year brig sentence for the convicted rapist — is “yet another example of an abuse of authority taken by a commander that will have a chilling effect on military judges, prosecutors, and juries and inhibit victims from coming forward,” testified Brian Lewis, a former Navy petty officer, who was raped in 2000 by a senior non-commissioned officer service. Lewis became the first male rape survivor ever to testify before Congress about such an assault. The hearing also marked the first Senate attention to military sexual assault in nearly 10 years.

“The epidemic has not been successfully been addressed in decades of review and reform by the Department of Defense or by Congress … (There is) inherent bias and conflict of interest present in a broken military justice system,” Lewis testified. “The reporting, investigation, prosecution and adjudication of sexual assault must be taken out of the chain of command and (placed) into an independent office with professional, military and civilian oversight. (The current system) … is another way that the Department of Defense fails us.”

Another veteran, former Army Sgt. Rebekah Havrilla, told the panel — part of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services — that she was raped in 2007, a week before she was scheduled to leave Afghanistan for the United States. When she confided the attack to an Army chaplain, he told her the rape “was God’s will and that God was trying to get my attention so that I would go back to church,” she testified, adding that her rapist later posted on the Internet images of her sexual assault.

Havrilla testified that she initially decided to not report the rape because she feared retaliation from the male members her her bomb-disposal unit. After she did report the rape to her commanders, the alleged offender was not punished, she further testified.

“Commanders were never held accountable for choosing to do nothing. What we need is a military with a fair and impartial criminal justice system, one that is run by professional and legal experts, not unit commanders,” Havrilla testified.

At least four senators on the Senate subcommittee said they favored the notion of adding independent prosecutors to the portion of the military-justice system that deals with sex assaults - or agreed that some version of fundamental reform is needed in how the armed forces handle rape reports. 

“I do not believe that the current system adequately meets our standard,” said the subcommittee’s chairwoman, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. “A system where less than one than one out of 10 reported perpetrators are taken to trial for their alleged crimes is not a system that is working. And that is just the reported crimes. The defense department itself puts the real number closer to 19,000 (rapes and unwanted sexual contacts per year, which means only) one out of 100 alleged perpetrators are faced with any accountability at all.

“We need to take a close look at the military justice system and we need to be asking the hard questions with all options on the table, including moving this issue outside of the chain of command so that we can get closer to a zero tolerance policy.” She added that the Aviano reversal, made by Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, was “shocking, and should compel all of us to take the necessary action to ensure that justice is swift and certain, not rare and fleeting.”

Equally disturbing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., argued that military rapes and how such cases are treated within the ranks are so destructive, they could potentially harm the future retention and recruitment of forces, particularly of women. 

"This issue really demands immediate action and not just tinkering around the edges," Blumenthal said. "The problem is the equivalent of having an IED in every unit."

Leaders from all five branches also testified about the litany of policy and cultural changes being installed to prevent and prosecute sex assaults, and to encourage more victims to report. They argued, however, that the power to investigate and ultimately punish suspected sexual offenders must remain within the confines of each branch. 

"For so long as we hold our commanders accountable for everything that a command does or fails to do then they must have these types of authorities," Marine Corps Maj. General Vaughn A. Ary. "They are responsible for setting command climate. They are are responsible for the culture. And it is their leadership that we have to hold accountable. They need to be able to preserve the good order and discipline to accomplish their missions."

Related: 

• Accuser in Air Force sexual assault case 'frustrated' at overturned verdict
• Civil Rights Commission urged to order audit of military sex-assault cases
• Reported sex assaults leap 23 percent at US military academies
• Sex-assault victims in military say brass often ignore pleas for justice

The victim in an Air Force sexual assault case that has provoked a firestorm in Congress says she was “absolutely stunned” when she learned that a top general had erased the conviction of her alleged assailant and that the decision will undermine the Pentagon’s efforts to encourage women to report such attacks.

“It looks to me like he is protecting one of his own,” Kimberly Hanks, 49, told NBC News in an exclusive interview, about the decision of Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, commander of the Third Air Force based in Ramstein, Germany, to overturn a jury’s verdict convicting a F-16 combat pilot of sexually assaulting her.

The message sent to other women who have been sexually assaulted, Hanks said, is “don’t bother” coming forward and reporting it. “It’s not worth it. Don’t bother.”

Hanks agreed to be named publicly for the first time and granted an hour-long interview that was arranged by Protect our Defenders, an advocacy group that has sought to call attention to the military sexual assault problem. In the interview, Hanks recounted her personal ordeal last year when, as a physician’s assistant assigned to a hospital at Aviano Air Base in Italy, she accused Lt. Col. James Wilkerson — an F-16 combat pilot who was an inspector general at the base — of sexually assaulting her in his home. Hanks spoke in Washington, D.C., on the eve of a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on sexual assaults in the military that is expected to focus in part on her case.

Although she wrestled at first about what to do about what happened to her, she decided she needed to step forward and report it to Air Force authorities.  

“I didn’t know if I could live with myself not doing anything about it,” Hanks said. “I couldn’t live personally with the knowledge that I was assaulted sexually and let this man go about his business while I had to live with the shame and the guilt. … I couldn’t let this guy get away with it.”

Wilkerson’s lawyer, Frank Spinner, told NBC News that Hanks had “lied about multiple aspects of the case” and there was “no physical corroboration” of her claims that his client had assaulted her. But Hanks’ account of events got powerful support late Tuesday when Col. Don Christensen, the Air Force’s chief  prosecutor who personally tried her sexual assault case, described her in an interview with NBC News as “one of the most credible witnesses I’ve ever dealt with.” Christensen said he spent hours interviewing Hanks and found her entirely “truthful.” “She never changed her story. It was always 100 percent consistent,” he said.

Hanks recounted how, just after months after arriving at Aviano Air Base, she was socializing with friends one evening after a concert and wound up at the home of Wilkerson and his wife, neither of whom she had known. Because of the late hour, she said she accepted an invitation to spend the night in the couple’s guest bedroom and went to sleep.  

Later in the evening, “I had felt some discomfort. The lights came on which woke me up. And — I opened my eyes and Wilkerson was in bed with me with his hands down my pants,” Hanks said. She said his “face was six inches in mine.” (She declined to discuss further details, but prosecutor Christensen said Hanks testimony was that Wilkerson had fondled her breasts and inserted his hands into her vagina, providing the basis for his conviction on aggravated sexual assault.) Hanks said at that moment Wilkerson’s wife had entered the room. “And she told me to get the hell out of her house,” Hanks said. “I mean, I thank her. Because if she hadn’t come in, I don’t know what could have happened.”  

According to the Air Force Times, Wilkerson's wife, Beth, testified at trial and denied she found her husband in the bed with Hanks, saying she asked her to leave because she was talking on her cell phone and walking around the house making the wooden floors creak. 

The military jury believed Hanks’ account, convicted Wilkerson, stripped him of his rank  and sentenced him to a year in a military brig. Hanks said she thought her ordeal was over — only to learn two weeks ago that Gen. Franklin — who never attended the trial — had exercised his authority as “convening authority” of the court martial to reverse the conviction. Wilkerson was freed from the brig at Charleston, S.C., had his rank restored.

The case has caused an uproar on Capitol Hill, where members are demanding an investigation of Franklin’s action and pressing for legislation to strip a military commander’s authority to overturn jury verdicts. “The fact that one person can overturn a punishment determined by a judge or a jury, flies I the face of justice,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat and member of the House Armed Services Committee.

An Air Force spokesman said Gen. Franklin made his decision to overturn the verdict “only after his very lengthy, careful and thorough consideration” of the trial record and related materials submitted by all parties in the case. He concluded “that there was insufficient evidence to support a finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Hanks said she is “frustrated” but has no regrets.

“I did the right thing,” she said. “I reported it. I told the truth.”     

More: Defying court's rules, anti-secrecy group posts tape of Manning statement 
Authorities in U.S., Jamaica team up to tackle persistent phone scam 

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 13, 2013 8:47 AM EDT

A marriage counselor charged with sexual assault is on trial in Texas accused of using her position of authority to have sex with a patient.

Sheila Loven counseled a couple in 2009 and allegedly used her counseling influence to encourage the wife to file for divorce, then had an affair with her husband.

Assistant District Attorneys Betty Arvin and Sean Colston are prosecuting the case.

The wife took the stand at the Tarrant County courthouse on Thursday and testified about her relationship with Loven, which she described as "visiting her best friend once a week to talk."

The wife said Loven spoke unfavorably about her husband for months and encouraged the two to divorce.

"It wasn't marriage counseling, it was divorce counseling," the wife said in court.

In Sept. 2009, after the wife filed for divorce, she met Loven at Flip's in Grapevine, Texas. Throughout lunch she disclosed to Loven suspicions she had about her husband seeing someone. She testified that after a possible girlfriend was mentioned, Loven admitted her involvement.

"It's me, it's me," the wife said Loven told her. "She had developed an interest in my husband and wanted to seek a relationship with him," she said in court.

The wife added that she was numb after the conversation with Loven and eventually got up and left the restaurant.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram reports that Loven and the husband had an affair for two months in 2009 before the couple reconciled after realizing that Loven had been deceiving them during their separate counseling sessions.

"I thought she was my friend, I thought she cared," the wife testified.

After the couple’s reconciliation, they started receiving sexually graphic, threatening and insulting text messages in Jan. 2010, allegedly from Loven.

The defense argued in court that the messages could not be authenticated. Judge Ruben Gonzalez over ruled the objections.

Prosecutor Betty Arvin quoted in court a text message to the husband that read: "When are you going to figure out that you are nothing without me? I made you a man."

A text sent to the wife read: "I want you to suffer."

The couple is now divorced.

Loven could face two to 20 years in prison if convicted. If convicted, as a first-time offender, she could get probation.

The trial is expected to resume on Thursday.