Experts: Capt. Owen Honors' Navy Career Is Over

The naval career of Capt. Owen Honors, who apparently produced, broadcast and even starred in raunchy and homophobic videos made aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier, will be over in a matter of days, according to military experts.

"He's done. His career is over," Stephen Saltzburg, the general counsel of the National Institute of Military Justice and a law professor at George Washington University, told AOL News in a phone interview today. "This is just bad judgment -- horribly bad judgment."

The Navy has launched an investigation into the lewd videos, which appear to feature Honors -- then the second-in-command on the USS Enterprise -- using anti-gay slurs and pretending to masturbate in a series of fratlike performances. Honors and other sailors allegedly broadcast the videos to the 6,000-crew ship for entertainment between 2006 and 2007.

The Enterprise is scheduled to deploy later this month, but experts said Honors would be relieved of his post long before then. "I'd be surprised if he was even on the ship," said Marion Bowman, a fellow at the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia and a former Navy JAG officer.

Honors isn't facing any criminal charges, so experts say he's not at risk of losing his military benefits or being dishonorably discharged. But as a naval commander, he can be summarily relieved of duty at any time if his superior officers think he displays bad judgment. Bowman said he may face a mast, or a Navy disciplinary hearing for officers in which an admiral will decide Honors' fate.

But if the investigation uncovers even more serious misconduct, Honors could find himself in far greater trouble. "If in the course of the investigation they find that some of the people who appeared in the videos were coerced into doing so by the captain, he could see a court-martial," Beth Hillman, a military legal expert and a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of Law, told AOL News today by phone.

Honors won't be officially demoted as an active-duty officer but will likely be removed from his post and essentially forced into an early retirement for conduct unbecoming of an officer. "When people do silly things like this, they not uncommonly pay the penalty of losing a stripe, being effectively demoted in retirement," said Eugene Fidell, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice and a lecturer at Yale Law School. "He may have to fight to retire as a captain instead of a commander."

Experts said it doesn't help that the videos, which were leaked to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, are deeply embarrassing for the Navy and come at a time when military officials are trying to promote the armed forces as being tolerant toward gays and women.

In one video, Honors acknowledges that there have been complaints about the footage, which he refers to as "XO Movies," but then he goes on to make more lewd remarks on camera. "Finally, let's get to my favorite topic," the captain says. "Something foreign to the gay kid over there -- chicks in the shower. This is certainly the most popular video of any of the XO Movie videos. It's also the one that's landed me with the most complaints."

In the wake of the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell,'' the policy that banned gays from openly serving in the military, Saltzburg said officials aren't likely to appreciate footage of a top Navy captain using homophobic slurs and filming women pretending to wash each other in the shower.

"Given [the Obama] administration's push to end 'don't ask, don't tell' and to try and make it clear that everyone who wants to fight for his or her country is welcome to be there without being subject to ridicule, I think they'll find this intolerable," Saltzburg said.

And Saltzburg said the Navy doesn't want a repeat of the so-called "Tailhook" scandal of 1991, when male Navy pilots sexually assaulted female Navy officers at a convention in Las Vegas.

Honors may not be the only Navy officer in hot water. Bowman said the Navy's investigation could focus on other officers who may have participated in the videos as well. "The other question is whether there are people in the chain of command who knew what was going on," he said.

The Navy called the USS Enterprise videos "clearly inappropriate" and said it has launched an investigation. "The videos created onboard USS Enterprise in 2006-2007 and written about in The Virginian-Pilot article on Saturday, January 1, 2011, are clearly inappropriate," the Navy said in a written statement to MSNBC.

Naval officials did not return a request for comment today by AOL News, and Honors could not be reached for comment.