An attorney for the woman, Susan Burke, said the incident occurred last April at an off-campus "football house" in Annapolis.
The woman got drunk and passed out, Burke said, and woke up remembering little from the party. "She learned from friends and social media that three football players were claiming to have had sexual intercourse with her while she was incapacitated," Burke wrote in an email distributed to reporters.
The explosive accusation comes at a time when the military is under renewed scrutiny for its handling of sexual assaults. A recent Pentagon survey stimated that 26,000 military service members experienced "unwanted sexual contact" last year, although only 3,374 filed sexual-assault reports.
An Air Force general ran afoul of Congress for granting clemency to a convicted sex offender without any public explanation; it was the second case this year in which a three-star Air Force general has raised lawmakers' hackles by effectively pardoning an officer found guilty of sexual assault.
And last month, a 41-year-old lieutenant colonel in charge of the Air Force's program to prevent sexual assaults was charged for allegedly groping a woman's breasts and buttocks in a parking lot in Arlington.
Last week, President Obama addressed sexual assaults in the military while speaking to Naval Academy graduates. "It only takes the misconduct of a few to further erode people's trust in their government," Obama told the graduates at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.
Burke said that her client was ostracized at the academy after reporting the incident. Burke said her client reported the incident to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, but the only action taken was to discipline the woman for drinking. The academy superintendent, Vice Admiral Michael H. Miller, closed the investigation without bringing charges, Burke said, but agreed to reopen the investigation this year after the woman sought help.
Burke added: "We continue to ask: Why should justice in military sexual assault cases be placed in the untrained and biased hands of commanders whose own career interests may be served by covering up incidents lke this one?"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
