How Navy Chiefs Conspired to Get Themselves Illegal Warship Wi-Fi

Today’s Navy sailors are likely familiar with the jarring loss of internet connectivity that can come with a ship’s deployment.

For a variety of reasons, including operational security, a crew’s internet access is regularly restricted while underway, to preserve bandwidth for the mission and to keep their ship safe from nefarious online attacks.

But the senior enlisted leaders among the littoral combat ship Manchester’s gold crew knew no such privation last year, when they installed and secretly used their very own Wi-Fi network during a deployment, according to a scathing internal investigation obtained by Navy Times.

As the ship prepared for a West Pacific deployment in April 2023, the enlisted leader onboard conspired with the ship’s chiefs to install the secret, unauthorized network aboard the ship, for use exclusively by them.

So while rank-and-file sailors lived without the level of internet connectivity they enjoyed ashore, the chiefs installed a Starlink satellite internet dish on the top of the ship and used a Wi-Fi network they dubbed “STINKY” to check sports scores, text home and stream movies.

The enjoyment of those wireless creature comforts by enlisted leaders aboard the ship carried serious repercussions for the security of the ship and its crew.

“The danger such systems pose to the crew, the ship and the Navy cannot be understated,” the investigation notes.

Led by the senior enlisted leader of the ship’s gold crew, then-Command Senior Chief Grisel Marrero, the effort roped in the entire chiefs mess by the time it was uncovered a few months later.

Grisel Marrero

Marrero was relieved in late 2023 after repeatedly misleading and lying to her ship’s command about the Wi-Fi network, and she was convicted at court-martial this spring in connection to the scheme.

She was sentenced to a reduction in rank to E-7 after the trial and did not respond to requests for comment for this report.

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All told, more than 15 Manchester chiefs were in cahoots with Marrero to purchase, install and use the Starlink system aboard the ship.

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Records obtained by Navy Times via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal a months-long effort by Marrero to obtain, install and then conceal the chiefs Wi-Fi network from superiors, including the covert installation of a Starlink satellite dish on the outside of the Manchester.

When superiors became suspicious about the existence of the network and confronted her about it, Marrero failed to come clean on multiple occasions and provided falsified documents to further mislead Manchester’s commanding officer, the investigation states.

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Marrero’s background is in Navy intelligence, and she earned a master’s degree in business administration with a concentration in information security and digital management, according to her biography.

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Only she could add others to the network, and would directly type the password into their devices, according to the investigation.

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At a special court-martial in March, Marrero pleaded guilty to willful dereliction of duty charge specifications, Navy Times previously reported. She also pleaded guilty to two false official statement charge specifications that involved her telling the CO that there was no Wi-Fi aboard the Manchester, according to her trial summary.

Additionally, she pleaded not guilty to an obstruction of justice charge, but was found guilty at trial, according to the trial summary record.

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Marrero’s “egregious misconduct” with the illegal Wi-Fi “cannot be understated,” the investigating officer wrote, particularly given how Moore needed her to step up following the relief of the ship’s second-in-command that summer.

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