SAN DIEGO — More than a half dozen former crewmembers of the USS Bonhomme Richard gave testimony on the first day of the arson trial of a young sailor Monday, describing a harrowing, chaotic scene as they confronted an inferno on the Navy warship with shoddy equipment.
With the thick black smoke quickly enveloping the ship, many said it was difficult to know what was going on. Now more than a year later, several of them who testified at the court martial of 21-year-old Ryan Sawyer Mays said that they are struggling to recall details from that July 12, 2020 morning, posing a challenge to the prosecution.
The prosecution has presented no physical evidence proving the 21-year-old sailor set the USS Bonhomme Richard on fire, something the defense has highlighted. Key witnesses also have changed their stories or their testimonies have contradicted each other.
According to prosecutors, Mays was an arrogant sailor angry about being assigned to deck duty after failing to become a Navy SEAL — and he made the Navy pay in a big way.
“Your honor, it was a mischievous act of defiance gone wrong,” Cmdr. Leah O’Brien told the judge during opening statements for the prosecution at Naval Base San Diego. Mays’ military defense counsel, Lt. Tayler Haggerty, countered in her opening remarks that it’s the Navy who is wrong. Haggerty said investigators concluded Mays did it before the probe was complete and then ignored evidence and witness accounts that didn’t fit into that narrative so they could find a scapegoat for the loss of a billion-dollar ship that was mismanaged by senior officers.
Once investigators pinned the blame on Mays, who was known for being sarcastic and flippant, “nothing else mattered,” Haggerty said.
“Just because the government eliminates, ignores pieces of evidence, it doesn’t mean the court should,” she told the court.