Veteran pushes for change to help victims of sexual violence

Coast Guard veteran K. Denise Rucker Krepp sent a letter to senators earlier this month urging them to change the law to make it easier for government employees with knowledge of sexual assault and harassment to testify before Congress. In a recent interview with NewsweekKrepp said she advocates for victims of sexual assault because “I don’t want something like that to happen to my daughters.”

An investigation launched in 2014 by the Coast Guard Investigative Service (CGIS) uncovered dozens of alleged sexual assaults at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) reported between 1988 and 2006.

As previously reported by NewsweekSenator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, celebrated the Coast Guard’s ending its “unacceptable practice” of imposing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) on victims of sexual assault.

However, Krepp believes more needs to be done to help survivors of sexual assault and victims of sexual harassment.

In a letter dated June 5, received by NewsweekKrepp called on Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, “to change federal law to allow federal employees to use federal employee time instead of annual leave when speaking to Congress about assault and harassment.”

Krepp, a former senior counsel at the Maritime Administration, recognized the need for this legislative change during her own trips to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. She is currently a civilian in the Navy and has been advised to take annual leave when sharing her knowledge of sexual assault and harassment with Congress and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General (IG).

“I have to waste my vacation while I have all these conversations with Congress,” Krepp said. Newsweek by phone on Thursday. “I think we should clarify that so that more people feel comfortable talking about it and then give them the reassurance that this can happen during government work hours. The crimes happened during government work hours, why can’t we report them during government work hours?”

Senator Blumenthal is chairman of the Investigations Committee on the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, in his capacity as ranking member of the Investigations Committee; Maria Cantwell of Washington, in her capacity as chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and Cruz, in his capacity as ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, were cc’d on the letter.

As of Sunday, none of the MPs addressed in the letter had responded to Krepp. Newsweek reached out to Johnson, Cantwell and Cruz via email and to Blumenthal by phone outside of normal business hours for comment.

“I’m being very public about this now because I don’t want this to continue. The criminal activity happened in my time. It happened when I was 25 (years old). I’m 51,” Krepp said. “I’m speaking publicly now with my name and standing up because I don’t want this to happen to my daughters. I can’t in good conscience tell my two children, ‘Follow my mommy into the military’ … because I don’t trust my own service.”

Krepp was a policy official in the Barack Obama administration. In her role as chief advisor to the Maritime Administration, she was responsible for the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York.

“I was informed of the sexual assault and requested an inspector general investigation in 2011,” Krepp said. She said a senior administration official told her she “shouldn’t have done that.” Krepp was given the choice that day to be fired or resign, and she chose to resign.

Krepp’s lobbying efforts really took off after a December 2023 investigative subcommittee hearing titled “Coast Guard Academy Whistleblowers: Stories of Sexual Assault and Harassment.”

In his opening statement at the hearing, Blumenthal said, “We have heard disturbing personal stories from numerous individuals; gripping, painful stories of sexual assault and harassment at the Coast Guard Academy and in the Coast Guard.”

“That hearing made me so angry,” Krepp recalled. “I went straight to the House Oversight Committee … and said, ‘Hi, my name is Denise. Someone is going to want to talk to me.'”