When I was in the Navy this dorky Brazilian guy on my ship went before Captain’s Mast for masturbating in an XXX-rated movie theater. His defense was that he was not masturbating, but was merely “fixing [rearranging] the hard.”
No need for the man in this article to have plead guilty when there are excuses like that.
Before I got to one of my commands they caught a cook in the officers mess “enjoying” the turkey. Felt sure they were “yanking my chain”, but as a collateral duty I was legal O and looked up the paperwork on the court martial - true story. Felt sorry for the Supp-o he had a hard time living that one down.