US Navy official removed from post for hiring PHL sex workers

A US Navy official was relieved from his post after he reportedly admitted to paying for sex during a brief stay in the Philippines last year, according to a report on Washington-based newspaper Kitsap Sun.

Captain Travis Zettel, a submarine commander, was reportedly removed from his post in August due to "a loss in confidence in his ability to command." 

Capt. Travis Zettel was relieved of duty last August after an investigation found he’d bought ‘female accompaniment’ in the Philippines. https://t.co/HxWWIzasih

— KitsapSun (@KitsapSun) January 12, 2019

The incident, according to the report, occurred in March 2018 when his submarine, the USS Bremerton, was docked in Subic Bay in the Philippines.

A witness reportedly told investigators that he saw Zettel with 10 "provocatively dressed females outside the front door of the hotel."

US Naval Criminal Investigative Service conducted the investigation on Zettel after a  naval hotline received an anonymous tip regarding his actions.

Zettel admitted "culpability in the payment of female accompaniment" during the incident, the report said.

The relieved Navy official had commanded USS Bremerton since August 2016. USS Bremerton is longest serving submarine in the US Navy.

The submarine, which was in service for 37 years, was formerly based at Pearl Harbor. It is now being decommissioned.

Zettel has been reassigned to a job with a different submarine squadron, the Telegraph report said. —Joviland Rita/KBK, GMA News