Source: Baltimore Sun
WASHINGTON - A Navy physician accused of secretly taping Naval Academy midshipmen having sex took the stand in his own defense yesterday, saying that he put an air purifier containing a hidden camera in a guest bedroom in his home to eliminate odors, not to record sex.

Speaking publicly for the first time since being charged in July, Navy Cmdr. Kevin Ronan said he bought the camera to ensure that midshipmen who stayed at his Annapolis house as part of a sponsor program were not throwing parties while he was away. But when his expected deployment fell through, he used the device solely as an air purifier, Ronan said.

"By the end of the weekend, it got a little stuffy," Ronan said of a room used by midshipmen, whom he said he considered his children. "I put an air purifier in the ... bedroom to take care of the smell."

Ronan's testimony came on the seventh day of his court-martial at the Washington Navy Yard, where closing statements are expected today.

Yesterday, prosecutors repeatedly questioned Ronan about a computer folder titled "lectures" that they say Ronan used to "stash" gay pornography.

Ronan denied downloading the porn on his computer and said he did not know who had. But prosecutors pointed out that some of the pornography was downloaded on evenings that Ronan has acknowledged using the computer for other purposes.

In nearly four hours of testimony before six jurors, Ronan, wearing a Navy uniform, calmly explained how he joined the Naval Academy in 2002, becoming brigade medical officer and serving as team doctor for varsity sports.

He became emotional when describing his relationship with about a dozen midshipmen who stayed at his house at different times between 2002 and 2007. Ronan said that he was disappointed to be single without children, and that the midshipmen filled a void.

He said the only time he used the camera - which came with a receiver that could be used to transmit images to a television - was to do an initial test in an empty room. He said that he used the device as an air purifier throughout the summer, and that he stored the device in his attic in the fall.

Ronan testified that he did not see it again until finding it in a guest bedroom Jan. 29, two days after prosecutors say the midshipmen found the DVDs. He said he suspected that one of his accusers had put it there, and had used the camera to secretly record another midshipman.

"Simple question: Did you make any of those videos?" asked Ronan's civilian attorney, William Ferris.

"None of them, sir," the doctor responded.

Ronan said that midshipmen had keys to his house and access to his computer. Under the defense's theory, the videos were made by one or more of the midshipmen who appear in them, including a former midshipman who is more than $120,000 in debt to the academy

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