The court-martial of an Air Force Academy cadet started Monday over allegations he sexually assaulted a fellow cadet in 2021 at a vacation rental house in Tabernash on the Western Slope.

Cadet Eamon Mchugh and nine other cadets started drinking during the afternoon of May 16, 2021, to celebrate receiving their class rings, a tradition for the junior class, lawyers said. The party continued into the evening with a bonfire.

While sitting around the bonfire, Mchugh and a female cadet started kissing, according to a photo showed during the trial. The two later went into a bedroom at the home, where the alleged assault happened, lawyers said.

The woman was found later that night “crying, half-naked and disoriented,” said Capt. Sarah Gaughan, for the prosecution.

The cadets who were trying to help the woman were unsure what to do, so they called a sexual assault response coordinator, who instructed them to take the woman to the hospital and collect evidence, she said.

The woman received internal and external injuries identified during the exam, Gaughan said. The cadets also took photos of red streaks on the bed sheets. The source of the possible blood on the sheets is a point of contention in the case.

Private attorney Lance Wood said, in Mchugh’s defense, that no one knows whether the woman consented to the exchange or not. The woman has no memory of events after she went into the bedroom with Mchugh, and Mchugh’s memory is fragmented.

The other cadets had no concerns while the two were kissing on the ground by the bonfire or walking past the group of other cadets on their way to a bedroom, Wood said.

The group was also not concerned when Mchugh left the bedroom to ask for a condom, he said.

“She was not being dragged up there,” he said.

Mchugh’s case is ongoing this week and will be decided by Judge Lt. Col. Bradley Palmer.