Retired Army Colonel Wil Riggins [center, as  a West Point cadet], sued his former West Point classmate Susan Shannon after he says her claims that he raped her 30 years earlier cost him a promotion

That blog is where Shannon talked about her own alleged rape in 1986 after reading about sex assaults in the military. It’s also a place where Shannon has written about controversial topics including whether the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut was a planned conspiracy.
But it was her 2013 post that’s now getting attention. The alleged rape Shannon wrote about is something she did not report before unexpectedly dropping out of West Point. She even denied it when asked during an exit interview.
“There was no way I was going to report that. The blame would fall squarely on me,” Shannon said.
Shannon, now a mother living on the West Coast as she fights an East Coast court battle, says she originally told friends and then kept silent, for decades. Her blog entry was published following the announcement that Colonel Riggins was nominated for general. Shannon maintains she was not aware of the nomination until contacted by Army officials following her post.

Cadet Susan Shannon [left] alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Army Colonel Wil Riggins [right] in 1986 while they were both cadets at West Point

Shannon said at the time she had finally been inspired to speak about her alleged experience after reading about several high profile convictions for sexual assaults in the military.
Shannon alleged she was raped by her former cadet classmate at the United States Military Academy in New York in 1986. She dropped out shortly afterwards.
Now a jewelry designer and a mother living on the West Coast, she added that the pressure in the army to keep quiet and not turn in her peers meant that she did not even report the alleged rape at her exit interview.
She made the claims on her blog Short Little Rebel in 2013 –  which followed the announcement that Colonel Riggins had been nominated for general.
Shannon denied having any knowledge of his nomination until she was contacted by Army officials investigating her blog post.
However, at the end of the trial which began July 24, jurors found her story lessthan credible.
The Washington Post quotes a juror as saying “Honestly,” said juror Marshall Reinsdorf, “we thought who was telling the truth was too obvious to be discussing. We held a vote, and everybody believed the colonel. The only argument was how big the damages were going to be.” Of the four women and three men on the jury, two other jurors declined to comment, two jurors did not return messages and two could not be reached.
Jurors it turned out, had numerous problems with Shannon’s testimony.
“Her story had so many details in it that couldn’t have been true,” he said. “They started questioning her about the [pedestrian] tunnel, she kind of backed off. … She was so evasive. It was unbelievable,” was the view of a juror.

Jury found retired Colonel Wil Riggins more credible

PresidingCourt Judge Daniel E. Ortiz had not suggested a dollar figure for damages, so the jury came up with roughly $3 million for his compensatory damages, Reinsdorf said. For punitive damages, the jury decided, “We need to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again,” Reinsdorf said. He said one juror suggested that as the rationale for the $5 million figure, and “basically got unanimous support for that.” Reinsdorf said the jury agreed that Shannon’s accusation derailed Riggins’s promotion. “There was no doubt in anybody’s mind the colonel had made his case,” Reinsdorf said. “He was believable.”
On the verdict form, the jury was asked whether Shannon made her statements knowing they were false or reckless or negligent, and checked “yes” for every one.
Holding fast to her story “The bottom line,” Shannon said, “is when the judge struck the [Army] CID findings at the beginning of trial” and prevented her witnesses from testifying about Riggins’s character, “we could not switch gears and defend me in a certain way.”
She acknowledged that her blog post sparked an investigation which otherwise wouldn’t have happened, but that Riggins had the burden of proof to show that the investigation stopped his promotion.
A satisfied plaintiff said“I think the jury’s verdict, not only that they found her statements were false and defamatory, but the amount of the damages they assessed, speaks volumes,”” Riggins said.
Although Shannon had claimed, on a GoFundMe page seeking help with her legal bills, that Riggins’s suit would discourage sex assault victims from making reports, Riggins responded that “this will discourage other false accusations but would not discourage legitimate accusations of sexual assault.”.