Panel: Captain Ensnarled in Lewd Video Scandal Can Stay in Navy

FILE: Capt. Owen Honors of the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier is pictured in an unidentified location in this still image taken from a video. (Reuters)

NORFOLK, Va. – A Navy panel says the former commander of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier who produced raunchy videos aboard the ship can remain in the service.

The board of inquiry issued its unanimous decision Wednesday. It had been looking at whether to recommend that Capt. Owen P. Honors be dismissed from the Navy.

Honors was relieved of command in January after media reports about the videos surfaced. The videos included simulated same-sex shower scenes, anti-gay slurs and references to prostitution in foreign ports.

Honors says the videos were made to improve morale while teaching important shipboard lessons. He helped produce and appeared in the videos that aired on the ship between 2005 and 2007, when he was the ship's executive office.