With thick black smoke quickly engulfing the ship, many said it was hard to tell what was going on. Now more than a year later, several of those who testified at the court-martial of 21-year-old Ryan Sawyer Mays said they have difficulty recalling details from that morning on July 12, 2020, posing a challenge to the prosecution. The prosecution presented no physical evidence that the 21-year-old sailor set fire to the USS Bonhomme Richard, which the defense stressed. Key witnesses have also changed their stories or contradicted each other, including on Monday. According to prosecutors, Mays was an arrogant sailor who was angry about being assigned to the deck after failing to become a Navy SEAL — and making the Navy pay dearly. “Your honor, it was a mischievous act of defiance gone wrong,” said Cmdr. Leah O’Brien told the judge during opening statements for the prosecution at the San Diego Naval Base. Mace’s military defense attorney, Lt. Taylor Haggerty, countered her opening remarks that the Navy is in the wrong. Haggerty said investigators concluded Mays did it before the investigation was complete and then ignored evidence and witness statements that didn’t fit that narrative to find a scapegoat for the loss of a billion-dollar ship mismanaged by higher-ups. officers. Once investigators charged Mays, who was known to be sarcastic and flippant, “nothing else mattered,” Haggerty said. “Just because the government eliminates, ignores evidence, doesn’t mean the court should,” he told the court. Haggerty told the judge that by the end of the trial, which is expected to last two weeks, “you will acquit this sailor and find him not guilty on both counts.” Mays is charged with arson and willful endangerment of a vessel. He has denied any wrongdoing. He waived his right to a jury and has placed his fate in the hands of Navy Judge Capt. Derek Butler. The July 2020 blaze burned for nearly five days and sent a plume of smoke over San Diego, damaging the amphibious assault ship so badly that it had to be shot down. It marked one of the worst non-combat warship disasters in recent memory. About 115 sailors were on board and nearly 60 were treated for heat exhaustion, smoke inhalation and minor injuries. The former Navy warship fire marshal became emotional Monday when asked by the prosecution to recall what he did that day. He took a moment before answering. “I’m still trying to deal with it in therapy myself,” Petty Officer Jeffrey Garvin told the court at Naval Base San Diego. “I apologise.” Later, he repeated: “I can’t remember much.” Defense lawyers say investigators are discounting the fact that the lithium batteries were stored next to highly flammable material such as cardboard boxes, in violation of shipboard protocol. The prosecution said a sailor told investigators he saw Mays go down into the ship’s lower vehicle storage area before the fire broke out there, while another sailor who accompanied Mays to the deck said he heard Mays say she did. The defense said he was being sarcastic after denying any wrongdoing during more than 10 hours of questioning by investigators. The defense said investigators, meanwhile, dismissed details pointing to another sailor, who was later discharged from the Navy. Several former crew members testified Monday that the vehicle’s lower storage area was filled with bottles, tools, generators, tractors and other equipment while the ship underwent a two-year, $250 million upgrade at the pier in San Diego. Navy leaders have disciplined more than 20 senior officers and sailors in connection with what they described as widespread leadership failures that contributed to the disaster. The Navy spread responsibility across a wide range of ranks and responsibilities and directly blamed the ship’s three top officers. While investigators said Mays started the fire, a Navy report last year concluded the inferno was preventable and unacceptable and that there were gaps in training, coordination, communications, fire readiness, equipment maintenance and general administration and control. Failure to extinguish or contain the fire resulted in temperatures exceeding 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas, melting parts of the ship into molten metal that flowed into other parts of the ship. Retired Navy Capt. Lawrence B. Brennan, an adjunct professor of Admiralty and International Maritime Law at Fordham Law School, said the prosecution has its work cut out for it. “There are questions about the identity of the people near the fire and possible causes other than arson,” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “Furthermore, the fire and firefighting efforts damaged, if not destroyed, the crime scene and critical evidence.”
