Army vet fights to clear his name

HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) - George Bryant III is fighting to clear his record, which includes a sexual assault on his young daughter who has since recanted her statements.

Bryant is a retired Army major suffering from prostate cancer.  Twenty years ago, Bryant stood trial for touching his then 6-year-old daughter inappropriately in the bath.

His daughter has since spoken out about the incident which she said was misconstrued.

In a letter sent to Gov. Bob McDonnell in 2010, the woman writes she was touched by her father at age 6 and admitted it in trial, "but I wasn't saying 'yes' in a derogatory way."

At the time of the trial, Hampton Circuit Judge Walter Ford said the young girl's testimony was credible and found Bryant guilty. Bryant was given a suspended sentence.

Document: Daughter recants sexual abuse

Bryant's attorney Ashton Wray said the girl's demeanor during the trial was not at all of a child who had been abused. She also showed no sign of abuse at the time of the trial.

"There were no signs of molestation but they proceeded to say I was [abused]," the woman wrote.

Bryant has taken a polygraph test which he passed. However, the test was not admissible in court.

"I am not guilty. I am innocent. I am falsely accused. I am wrongly convicted and I am innocent. I did not molest my daughter," Bryant said.

In the letter to McDonnell, the woman admits she was told what to say by her lawyer.

"That was not right, because a 6-year-old will pretty much go along with everything," she wrote.

The woman said the Hampton Department of Social Services could be to blame for the confusion.

"Instead of them giving me advice it was treated as a sexual abuse case and blown out of proportion," she wrote.

"After considering everything, my sense is that this is a case that should not be prosecuted or should not have gone forward," Wray said. 

Bryant's daughter has pleaded with three Virginia governors in the past few years to clear her father's name.

In 2006, then Governor Mark Warner restored Bryant's civil rights. A few years later, then Governor Tim Kaine failed to grant an absolute pardon, which would have cleared Bryant's record. 

At this point, Bryant's daughter must testify in a court of law to get him a writ of actual innocence to begin the process of clearing her father's name.

"I am asking for his name to be cleared," she wrote. "He is innocent and everything he has been accused of is 100 percent false."

And although he is a convicted felon, Bryant will be able to be buried at Arlington National Ceremony, as he wishes. Only those convicted of capital crimes can not be buried in national cemetaries.