Three Naval Academy football players are under investigation for sexually assaulting a female midshipman, Academy officials confirmed Thursday. 
 
 The Naval Academy would not name the players under investigation or say when the investigation started. 
 
 "Naval Academy leadership is monitoring the progress of this investigation and evaluating the appropriate options for adjudication," said Cmdr. John Schofield, the Naval Academy spokesman. "It is completely inappropriate to make any other public comment on this investigation or any ongoing investigation as we risk compromising the military justice process." 
 
 Naval Academy officials could not say when they expected the investigation into the three Naval Academy football players to be completed. 
 
 Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Michael Miller and Navy Football Coach Ken Niumatalolo were not made available to comment on the investigation because it is ongoing. 
 
 There are few details available on the investigation as it remains ongoing. However, it comes to light six days after President Obama spoke at the Naval Academy graduation and challenged the newly commissioned officers to combat the growing problem of sexual assault in the service academies and the military at large. 
 
 A recent Defense Department survey said that sexual assault incidents in the ranks increased in 2012 to 26,000 from 19,000 in 2010. A survey of the service academies also found an increase in sexual assault within all three academies. 
 
 Compared to 2011, the Air Force Academy in Colorado showed the largest increase in sexual assaults from 33 to 52 in 2012. Sexual assaults at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., increased from 11 to 15, and the numbers were up at West Point from 10 to 13. 
 
 Currently, a Marine Corps major is charged with raping a female midshipman while he was a history instructor at the Naval Academy. The court martial is underway at the Washington Navy Yard. 
 
 Marine Maj. Mark A. Thompson has been charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of fraternization and three counts of conduct unbecoming an officer. The court martial started on Tuesday. 
 
 At West Point, a sergeant first class is under investigation for allegedly planting cameras in the showers and locker rooms of female cadets. 
 
 In 2006, former Navy quarterback Lamar Owens was acquitted of raping a fellow former midshipman while the two were at the Naval Academy. However, he was convicted by a court martial panel of conduct unbecoming of an officer and violating a direct order. 
 
 He was later expelled from the Naval Academy in 2007 following the controversial back and forth after he was initially sentenced to "no punishment." ||||| ANNAPOLIS, Md. — As midshipmen were graduating from the Naval Academy here last week, Navy investigators were conducting an investigation into reports that several football players had serially raped a female midshipman at an off-campus party last year. 
 
 Three Navy football players are under investigation in the case, according to Naval Academy officials. No charges have been brought, but the academy has delayed the graduation of one of the three midshipmen and his commissioning in the Navy, according to academy officials and others briefed on the inquiry. The academy’s superintendent, Vice Adm. Michael H. Miller, is expected to receive a final report from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in the next week or two and then decide whether to proceed with charges, according to academy officials. 
 
 The investigation, stemming from an April 2012 party, has sputtered off and on for more than a year, hampered in part by the woman’s initial refusal to cooperate, the officials said. She was ashamed and then later felt intimidated, according to her Washington lawyer, Susan Burke. In a series of interviews, the female midshipman said that she was upset that she had faced disciplinary action for under-age drinking at the party while the football players were permitted to play last season. 
 
 Academy officials acknowledged the inquiry but declined to comment further. “Naval Academy leadership is monitoring the progress of this investigation and evaluating the appropriate options for adjudication,” a spokesman said in a statement. “It is completely inappropriate to make any other public comment on this investigation or any ongoing investigation, as we risk compromising the military justice process.” 
 
 Academy officials said that the players were allowed to play for the team last fall because no charges had been brought in the case and they were accorded the presumption of innocence as a result. Officials described the case as delicate and complex, and one in which the investigation has been hampered by the limits of the available evidence. 
 
 The inquiry comes amid a growing national controversy over sexual assaults in the military — and over whether he Pentagon has reacted aggressively enough to curb them. The controversy has now reached into the cloistered world of the elite service academies. 
 
 In January, a Naval Academy instructor was charged with raping a female midshipman; the court-martial began this week. The Naval Academy has said that it had 51 total reports of unwanted sexual contact during the academic years from 2011 through 2013. 
 
 But in recent interviews, current and former female midshipmen said they believe many more episodes go unreported. They said that women, who first arrived in Annapolis in 1976 and now make up 22 percent of the student population, are often worried about the consequences. 
 
 Candace Tisdale, a midshipman and a friend of the woman at the center of the current investigation, said women at the academy learn to adapt to harassment and a sometimes-hostile climate. “The desire to be accepted by the group, and the high stress during plebe summer and plebe year, make you accept it,” she said. The academy culture teaches midshipmen to meet high moral standards but also drills into students not to “throw shipmates under the bus,” she said. 
 
 Annie Kendzior, a former midshipman who has filed a lawsuit over two alleged assaults by athletes in 2008 that she did not report to the academy until 2011, said she initially declined to pursue the cases because she “didn’t want to be labeled as this person who got varsity athletes kicked out.” 
 
 In a series of interviews, the female midshipman involved in the 2012 episode now under investigation offered an account of that April night and its aftermath. Naval Academy officials confirmed many of the basic facts that she provided in her account. 
 
 Now 21, she asked to remain anonymous, concerned about her career and reputation. She said that after that night, she was taunted and harassed by other midshipmen and suffered from depression for months. 
 
 In a public statement Friday, Ms. Burke, her lawyer, said the woman “was ostracized and retaliated against by the football players and the Naval Academy community.”
– The military has yet another high-profile sex-assault investigation on its hands, this one involving three unidentified players on the Navy football team, reports Military.com. They are accused of raping a drunk female midshipman during an off-campus party last year, reports the New York Times, which has interviewed the unidentified woman. The 21-year-old says she was drunk before she arrived at the party and continued drinking while there. She acknowledges that she doesn't remember much, apart from being on a bed with one player on the team and later in a car with three others. “I was sitting on my knees on the floor in the back seat,” she tells the Times. “I remember briefly seeing them, and I remember crying, and being upset and saying I’m sorry.” A day later, when she noticed bruises on her body, she says one of the players admitted they had sex with her. Soon, rumors started flying around campus on social media—including a private Facebook page for players—and the woman went to authorities when she heard another female cadet was going to report the incident. No charges have been filed, but the graduation of one of the suspects has been delayed while the investigation continues. The three were allowed to play this season.