Sherrill Naval Academy cheating scandal resurfaces

With just over a month left before the election, the New Jersey governor’s race is heating up. And more scrutiny about Democrat gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill’s past is mounting as a past scandal resurfaces.

Blaze News previously reported on Mikie Sherrill tripling her wealth while in Congress with alleged insider trading. Now, however, details have emerged that she was implicated in a cheating scandal that precluded her from walking in her U.S. Naval Academy graduation ceremony.

‘Today’s admission by Congresswoman Sherrill that she was implicated in, and punished for, her involvement in the largest cheating and honor code scandal in the history of the United States Navy is both stunning and deeply disturbing.’

The New Jersey Globe reported that Sherrill’s class at the U.S. Naval Academy was involved in a large-scale cheating scandal in which two dozen of Sherrill’s classmates were expelled for obtaining and sharing a copy of an electrical engineering test in December 1992.

One of the midshipmen in the class reportedly estimated that “more than 80%” of the 663 people who took the test the next day had seen the exam. Others were punished for not speaking out about this cheating, as was the case with Sherrill.

RELATED: ‘Tripled her net worth’: Democrat gubernatorial candidate slammed for suspected insider trading

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“I didn’t turn in some of my classmates, so I didn’t walk, but graduated and was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving for nearly 10 years with the highest level of distinction and honor,” Sherrill said, according to NJ.com.

“Today’s admission by Congresswoman Sherrill that she was implicated in, and punished for, her involvement in the largest cheating and honor code scandal in the history of the United States Navy is both stunning and deeply disturbing,” Jack Ciattarelli’s campaign manager, Eric Arpert, told the New Jersey Globe. “For eight years, Mikie Sherrill has built her entire political brand around her time at the Naval Academy and in the Navy, all the while concealing her involvement in the scandal and her punishment. The people of New Jersey deserve complete and total transparency.”

Upon review of the 1994 graduation program first obtained by the New Jersey Globe, Blaze News can confirm that Sherrill’s name does not appear in the document.

As has been widely reported, Sherrill has made her military service as a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and helicopter pilot a major part of her political identity. Despite the scandal, she graduated on time and served in the Navy for nine years before her retirement in 2003.

“Jack [Ciattarelli] continues to try and use any avenue he can to execute the MAGA playbook of smearing military service,” she said. “Now, his latest attempt is to go after a 30-year-old widely reported incident when I was an undergraduate at the Naval Academy.”

According to an Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill poll from September 22-23, Sherrill and Ciattarelli are now tied at 43% approval, closing Sherrill’s lead in past polls with just over a month before the November 4 election.

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