Naval Academy @ MindSay

The Navy quarterback accused of raping a female midshipman will face a court-martial, the academy announced Friday.

The U.S. Naval Academy superintendent made the decision after the military equivalent of a grand jury investigation was held for Lamar Owens, 22, last month.

He is accused of raping a 20-year-old midshipman in the academy's 4,000-student dorm. If convicted, he could get life in prison, though that punishment is considered unlikely.

The Savannah, Ga., native led Navy's football team to an 8-4 record this season and was the team's most valuable player.

With striking regularity, sexual-assault charges at the U.S. Naval Academy are dismissed without trial and the suspects are instead expelled from school, according to an analysis of hundreds of pages of Navy documents.

Of 56 midshipmen accused of sexual assault since 1998, two have been convicted, and one of those was in a civilian court, a review by The Washington Post of Navy incident reports, case summaries and data released by the school show.

In virtually every other case in which investigators found evidence of sexual assault, military prosecutors -- and, in one instance, civilian officials -- cut deals forcing the alleged offender to leave the academy without facing trial and without having a criminal record.

Somehow this doesn't really surprise me.