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Timothy James Bilecki's Legal Cases (543)

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Military law

Fort Carson Second Lieutenant Receives GOMOR After One Off-Duty Group-Chat Text

Jun 24, 2022

OUTCOME: GOMOR permanently filed.

A brand-new Field Artillery lieutenant at Fort Carson sent one crude text about a female platoon leader in the same battalion into a platoon group chat. The Army treated it as a hostile-work-environmen ... t SHARP case. While drunk, he sent a crude, sexualized text about a female lieutenant into a platoon group chat used by leaders and NCOs in the battery. The female lieutenant was not in the group chat, but she was later notified about the message. The text was immature, embarrassing, and below the standard expected of an Army officer. The other lieutenant then told him to leave the party and find a ride. While the Lieutenant was trying to get picked up, the incident was reported up the chain of command. An AR 15-6 investigation followed. The Investigating Officer found that the text violated AR 600-20 paragraph 7-7 and created a hostile work environment. The Commanding General later issued a GOMOR. By the time the GOMOR was issued, almost a year had passed since the party. In that time, the Lieutenant had been removed from his platoon, relieved of his duties as Fire Direction Officer, and left waiting while the command's position shifted from possible company-grade Article 15, to GOMOR, to no GOMOR, and then back to GOMOR. Bilecki was retained before the GOMOR filing decision. The rebuttal did not defend the text. It accepted the obvious bad fact: the message was inappropriate, embarrassing, and not how an officer should speak about another officer. The issue was not whether the text was wrong. It was. The issue was whether one off-duty drunken text created a hostile work environment under AR 600-20. The AR 15-6 packet did not show a pattern. The female lieutenant stated that he had not made prior inappropriate comments toward her or anyone else she knew of. The lieutenant who reported the incident said the same thing. This was not a series of sexual comments, propositions, harassment, or predatory conduct. It was one off-duty text, sent while severely intoxicated, followed almost immediately by a corrective message. The rebuttal walked the Commanding General through the hostile-work-environment standard. AR 600-20 paragraph 7-7 requires more than an offensive comment. For hostile work environment sexual harassment, the conduct must be sufficiently severe or pervasive. The rebuttal argued that one off-duty drunken text in a peer group chat was not the same as repeated workplace sexual harassment. The mitigation was not limited to Army performance. He trained with the 4ID Combatives Team, coached wrestling at a local high school, attended church, volunteered in the community, and had character support from officers who had worked with him. One of the character letters came from a unit victim advocate, who acknowledged the need for accountability, stated the messages were inappropriate, but also said the incident was out of character and had deepened his understanding of sexual harassment and assault. The defense asked the Commanding General to rescind the GOMOR or, in the alternative, locally file it. The GOMOR was permanently filed.

Military law

CID Closes Article 120 Investigation of Army Major Without Charges or NJP

Jun 24, 2022

OUTCOME: CID investigation closed without preferral. No court-martial. No NJP. GOMOR permanently filed in AMHRR with rebuttal record.

An Army Air Defense Artillery Major and Battalion Executive Officer at Fort Bliss faced a CID Article 120 abusive sexual contact investigation after a subordinate Sergeant's husband walked into command ... with seventeen screenshots and a story. Both the Sergeant and her husband were enrolled in the Married Army Couples Program. Both had begun divorce paperwork. Maximum exposure on a referred Article 120 abusive sexual contact conviction at general court-martial: years of confinement, mandatory Dismissal, federal felony record, federal sex offender registration, and the end of the commission. The reporting timeline mattered. In early 2022, the husband reported the relationship to command. CID opened an investigation. Our client was relieved as Battalion XO. A Military Protective Order was issued. CID interviewed all three principals over the next several weeks. Our client retained Bilecki pre-CID interview. We held Article 31 invocation through the CID interview cycle. We engaged Trial Counsel and the OSJA on the consensual relationship framing while CID was still working the file: the alleged victim's own contemporaneous statements, the photographs and text messages from her own phone during the relationship, and the 1SG's Memorandum for Record capturing her own "some of it was mutual" admission. CID closed the investigation without a referral to court-martial. The case then ran through the administrative track. In May 2022, the Convening General signed a GOMOR. The GOMOR cited the inappropriate relationship, inappropriate text messages, sexual acts on and off post within the unit footprint while on duty, an alleged forceful placement of the Sergeant's hand on our client's exposed penis without consent, and conduct unbecoming an officer. The defense GOMOR Rebuttal Matters memo went in June 2022 with twenty-one enclosures. The rebuttal centered on the consensual relationship the GOMOR did not acknowledge. The 1SG's contemporaneous Memorandum for Record documenting the Sergeant's own "some of it was mutual" admission was front and center. Character statements from a Captain, a Staff Sergeant, a Specialist, and two Sergeants in the unit addressed the Sergeant's credibility and conduct. Images the Sergeant herself had sent to our client during the relationship corroborated the consensual relationship the GOMOR's coercion theory required the rebuttal to disprove. The career achievement record went in: Battery Command OERs, Battalion XO selection, Saint Barbara honors, published articles in the ADA Journal and AUSA, San Diego State Performance Base Graduate Student Program, AMU Masters, CGSC Masters, and an ongoing Doctor of Management degree plan. The rebuttal expressly requested local filing in the MPRJ rather than permanent OMPF or AMHRR filing. The Convening General filed the GOMOR permanently in the AMHRR. For an Air Defense Artillery Major and Battalion Executive Officer who walked into the case with a CID Article 120 abusive sexual contact investigation, an MPO, a relief from Battalion XO, and the commission on the line, the criminal track ended without a single charge preferred. No court-martial. No NJP. The administrative track produced a permanent AMHRR filing on the GOMOR, and the rebuttal record on the consensual relationship framing went into the AMHRR with it.

Military law

Bilecki Closes Navy Medical Officer Show Cause; Career Preserved, OMPF Clean

Jun 24, 2022

OUTCOME: No show cause required for retention. Neither the SIN letter nor the underlying incident report filed in the OMPF. Career preserved.

This was a Medical Corps Lieutenant Commander serving as a 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade Surgeon at NSA Bahrain whose documented adverse vaccine reaction was rerouted into a Status In the Navy show ... cause process the chain of command never wanted in the first place. The medical timeline mattered. In spring 2021, after the first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, our client suffered a severe inflammatory reaction with a subsequent opportunistic bacterial infection requiring approximately four days of hospitalization. The civilian discharge note advised against the second dose. The Senior Medical Officer at NSA Bahrain concurred. A medical waiver process followed. In fall 2021, our client submitted an Unqualified Resignation Request from active duty. The chain of command was on her side. The Convening General of Naval Amphibious Force, Task Force 51 / 5th MEB endorsed the resignation, recommending approval. The CG endorsement was direct: "In no way is [she] to blame for her decision to separate from the Navy. In fact, it is for the greater good of the Navy that she feels compelled to submit her resignation." That recommendation went to NAVPERSCOM. NAVPERSCOM denied the UQR for failure to meet the minimum service requirement and overseas service obligation. The administrative track shifted. The CG's headquarters then transmitted an incident report to PERS-834 (Commander, Navy Personnel Command) framing the second-dose refusal as a fitness for duty referral. Under SECNAVINST 1920.6D, that filing put the matter into a Status In the Navy show cause for retention review. A Navy O-4 Medical Corps officer with a CG endorsement supporting her separation, a documented adverse vaccine reaction, and a Senior Medical Officer's medical concurrence had to defend her continued service against the same chain that had supported her resignation. Our client retained Bilecki in February 2022, after NAVPERSCOM's denial of the UQR rerouted the matter into the Status In the Navy show cause posture under SECNAVINST 1920.6D. The defense argument to PERS-834 was that the second-dose refusal was a medical exemption issue, not a fitness for duty referral. The documented adverse reaction to the first dose and the Senior Medical Officer's concurrence against the second were the predicate facts. A Medical Corps officer following her own Senior Medical Officer's medical recommendation against a second dose, with a Convening General's endorsement on her resignation that the chain itself called "for the greater good of the Navy," was not the kind of officer the fitness for duty track exists to remove. The defense package put the medical record, the SMO concurrence, the CG's endorsement, and the documentary chain of command character record in front of PERS-834 as a single coherent submission. The Show Cause Authority read it. The underlying incident report and the SIN letter itself stayed out of the Official Military Personnel File. Future promotion boards. Security clearance reviews. Selection boards. Whatever came next on the OMPF would not include the incident report, the SIN letter, or any reference to the show cause process. For a Navy Medical Corps Lieutenant Commander with a documented adverse vaccine reaction, a Senior Medical Officer's medical concurrence against the second dose, and a Convening General's endorsement supporting her resignation, the show cause process the chain had inherited from NAVPERSCOM's denial of the UQR was the actual exposure. The career-affecting filing that would have followed a show cause finding requiring retention proceedings did not materialize.

Military law

NCIS Closes Okinawa Article 120 Investigation Without Charges After Text Messages

Jun 24, 2022

OUTCOME: NCIS Article 120 investigation closed without charges. No federal conviction. No SORNA. No adverse administrative action.

A short Okinawa dating relationship turned into an NCIS Article 120 sexual assault investigation. Our client was a Marine Sergeant stationed in Okinawa. The alleged victim was a civilian English tea ... cher on Okinawa who had a history of dating Marines. They met, flirted, spent time together, and had a short sexual relationship. After she found out he was seeing other women, she reported to the command that the sex had been nonconsensual. The allegation moved from command to NCIS. Bilecki was retained early, before charges were preferred and before the Marine gave NCIS a statement. That mattered. NCIS did not get an uncontrolled interview. The Marine did not sit for a polygraph. He did not consent to a search. Instead, the defense forced the case back to the evidence that existed before the allegation: the messages between the two of them. The key evidence was the text message thread the alleged victim did not give the Government. The alleged victim denied having a prior sexual relationship with the Marine. The messages showed otherwise. They showed the relationship developing in real time: flirting, plans to meet, him picking her up, her confirming he made it home safely, the two of them continuing to talk afterward, and more plans to see each other again. After the alleged incident, she kept texting him. She referenced the sexual encounter, the hickeys, what she enjoyed, what she wanted, and what they might do next. She told him she had fun. She made plans to meet again. The messages did not read like fear, damage control, or someone trying to avoid him. They read like two adults continuing a sexual relationship after a consensual encounter. The messages also showed why the allegation changed. The alleged victim was upset that he was seeing other women in Okinawa. That context mattered because the later accusation did not arrive in a vacuum. It came after jealousy, continued contact, and text traffic that contradicted what she told command. She did not turn over those messages. The defense did. Bilecki provided the text messages to prosecution and command. That was the difference in the case. The Government no longer had just an allegation. It had the messages the alleged victim refused to provide, and those messages showed the prior sexual relationship, the post-incident flirting, the plans to meet again, the hickeys, the sexual references, and the jealousy over other women. After reviewing the messages, prosecution and command decided not to prefer charges and not to issue adverse administrative action. The NCIS investigation closed without charges. For a Marine Sergeant in Okinawa facing an Article 120 sexual assault allegation, the exposure was a general court-martial, federal conviction, Dishonorable Discharge, sex offender registration, and confinement. None of that happened.

Military law

Case Result: SAPR Challenges Lieutenant’s Defense

Jun 17, 2022

OUTCOME: Case Result: SAPR Challenges Lieutenant’s Defense

The military’s Sexual Assault and Harassment Prevention (SARP) campaign has changed the military and not always for the better. While it was created with noble intent, the execution has led to a cultur ... e where allegations are treated as fact and even mere rumor is enough to ruin a career. Such was the case for a young Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade (O-2) stationed in Sasebo, Japan. In June of 2022, the LT was out drinking at Cindy’s Getaway with fellow officers. The night then continued to Sunflower Bar where a chance encounter led to the end of an officer’s career. Another officer accused our client of putting his hand on her leg and propositioning her. Our client denied these claims and stated that the actions were consistent with how people lean in to talk inside a noisy bar. The situation escalated when that same officer accused our client of dancing inappropriately with her on the dance floor. Again, this a crowded bar where people are consuming alcohol and dance floors can quickly push people into one another. Furthermore, we’re not sure what an “appropriate” dance looks like apart from the middle school rule of keeping others arm’s length apart. With formal inquiries into the allegations commencing, the Lieutenant retained attorney Tim Bilecki to come to his defense. Understanding the gravity of the consequences in the era of SAPR, Bilecki sought to guide this case towards Non-Judicial Punishment (NJP). The reality is that there were conflicting accounts of the night’s event and there was an absence of independent witnesses. It was clear that the command and prosecution were looking for an easy win to look tough in the era of SAPR and they were not trying to uncover facts, look into the Lieutenant’s prior character or consider that the accuser could be making this up for her own purposes. As a result of Bilecki’s work, the case was kept at the NJP level as a court martial would have been more devastating. However, the command needed to look tough, and they proceeded with administrative separation based on a violation of Article 92. Dismayed that this is what the military has become, the Lieutenant willfully chose to exit the service.

Military law

Bilecki Walks AFOSI Off Article 120 Sexual Assault Investigation on Air Force E-4 at Kadena Pre-Charging

Jun 10, 2022

OUTCOME: AFOSI closed the file. No charges. No NJP. No administrative separation. Airman retained on active duty.

This was an Air Force E-4 at Kadena under an active AFOSI Article 120 sexual assault investigation, facing court martial referral, federal sex offender registration, and an Other Than Honorable separat ... ion if the case carried. Our client retained Bilecki while AFOSI was still working the file. The defense investigation surfaced documentary motive evidence the alleged victim's account had not accounted for. Texts. Social media records. Witness statements the alleged victim did not want on a court martial record. The documentary record put the report's timing and origin in a different light than the AFOSI Report of Investigation framing did. For an Air Force E-4 at Kadena under an AFOSI Article 120 sexual assault investigation with court martial referral, federal sex offender registration, and an Other Than Honorable separation all on the line if the case carried, the conviction track and the SORNA registration were the actual exposure. Neither materialized.

Military law

Bilecki Suspends Field Grade Article 15 Punishment on Sixteen-Year Signal Staff Sergeant's Delta 8 Drug Pop at Fort Gordon

May 27, 2022

OUTCOME: Field Grade Article 15 imposed. Punishment suspended. No administrative separation. No GOMOR. No reduction. Soldier continued in service.

This was a sixteen year Army Signal Staff Sergeant about to lose a career he had rebuilt the hard way over a Delta 8 sample gummy he picked up at a nutrition store next to a vegan protein shake. Thi ... s was not a Soldier trying to get high. The household had been running on no sleep for a month. A few weeks later, his wife had recovered enough to take back the night shift with the infant. On two consecutive nights, our client took the sample gummies as a sleep aid. He never read the back of the package. He never felt high. He went to bed. A few days later, the command ran a routine unit urinalysis. He provided a sample without a thought because he had no reason to think anything was wrong. The lab report came back weeks later, positive for THC-8 and THC-9 metabolites. The defense theory was AR 600-85 paragraph 4-2(9)(a), the "honest and reasonable" lack of knowledge that the product contained a hemp derived substance. The pharmacology of Delta 8 mattered to that theory. Delta 8 is derived from CBD and, as of the relevant timeframe, was federally legal under the 2018 Farm Bill. It is sold ubiquitously in nutrition stores, gas stations, and online retailers. When marketed as a sleep aid, the labeling is often "all natural," "hemp derived," or "melatonin free," with the actual Delta 8 designation only on the back ingredient panel. Sample packs in particular are passed across the counter without any disclosure conversation. The chemistry is also indistinguishable on a standard military urinalysis. Delta 8 and Delta 9 produce the same metabolite. A Delta 8 ingestion will produce a positive on both panels, even when the user never consumed Delta 9. The Delta 9 result was not separate use. It was the same use the Delta 8 result described. Our client had a documented substance abuse history with alcohol from over a decade earlier. He had never failed a urinalysis in sixteen years. He had never had a "re-pee." He had never mysteriously missed a urinalysis. After his early career trouble, he had married, started a family, become an Orthodox Christian with the dietary practice that comes with it, and built a stack of stellar NCOERs. He had supported SOF and JSOC missions across two Afghanistan deployments and had a JSOC billet pending. Our client retained Bilecki in late April 2022, after the lab report came back positive and before the Field Grade Article 15 was imposed. We submitted the AR 15-6 Rebuttal Memorandum to the Battalion Commander in May 2022. The package walked through the AR 600-85 honest and reasonable framework, the Delta 8 and Delta 9 metabolite chemistry, the family medical chronology, and the personal record. The supporting package included a JSOC recommendation memorandum, a Captain's character letter, a Master Sergeant's character memorandum, multiple peer character letters, and the Unit Commander's Evaluation. For a sixteen year Signal Staff Sergeant with a JSOC billet pending and a clean sixteen year urinalysis record, the loss of his career on a Delta 8 sleep aid was the actual exposure. It did not happen.

Military law

Bilecki Closes Two Sequential Article 120 Investigations on Same Army SSG at Grafenwoehr Pre-Preferral

May 13, 2022

OUTCOME: Both allegations closed with no court-martial, no NJP, no GOMOR, and no administrative separation; Soldier continued in service.

An Army Staff Sergeant assigned to the U.S. Army Health Clinic at Grafenwoehr got hit twice. The Government had probable cause both times. Both times the case died short of preferral. The first inve ... stigation came out of a Friday night barracks party in Grafenwoehr in fall 2020. The complainant was a Soldier from a National Guard medical company on rotation. She reported the allegation months after the alleged conduct, and only after she had returned to her home command. The case bounced from her home post CID to Grafenwoehr CID in late 2021. CID worked the file for another five months and issued the Final Law Enforcement Report in early 2022. The Special Victim Prosecutor at the OSJA opined probable cause for Article 120 sexual assault. The CID report read: "There is sufficient evidence to provide to command for consideration of action." Our client retained Bilecki on the first complaint while CID was still working the file. The work was at the command level, before any preferral decision. We engaged the Commander directly with the contemporaneous record the CID file had not surfaced as cleanly: the alleged victim's months-late reporting after she had already returned to her home command, the limits of what the witness statements actually said about the night, and the character record on our client. The objective was to give the Commander what she needed to apply her own R.C.M. 306 disposition discretion against an SVP probable cause opinion. In August 2022, a different complainant made a SHARP allegation at the same clinic. The command moved fast. Our client was put on a Flag Code M (Law Enforcement Investigation), placed under a Military Protective Order, given a place-of-duty change to a headquarters staff section, ordered into command-directed behavioral health, and ordered out of his assigned barracks. The DA Form 4856 counseling delivered the AR 635-200 paragraph 17-3 advisement that the alleged misconduct could result in initiation of administrative separation proceedings with possible Honorable, General, or Other Than Honorable characterization. Our client retained Bilecki for the second SHARP investigation the same week the AR 635-200 paragraph 17-3 advisement was served. We moved the MPO. It was updated and rescinded a month later. On the AR 635-200 paragraph 17-3 advisement, our position was that an administrative separation could not properly initiate parallel to an open CID investigation that itself was running on a non-cooperating second complainant. The AdSep track sat on the shelf until the CID file resolved. Article 31 invocation held through the second CID interview cycle. We submitted the existing first-allegation record to the OSJA as the framework for assessing what the second allegation could and could not add. For an Army Staff Sergeant who walked into two consecutive Article 120 investigations with an SVP probable cause opinion, a CID Final Law Enforcement Report finding sufficient evidence for command action, an MPO, a Flag Code M, and an AR 635-200 paragraph 17-3 separation advisement on the table, that was a different ending than the one the Government was driving toward.

Military law

Bilecki Wins GOMOR Rescission for Army SSG on Four-Year-Old Article 120 Allegation

May 06, 2022

OUTCOME: GOMOR rescinded. Commanding General personally called Bilecki Law Group to thank the firm for exonerating the Soldier.

The Army issued our client a GOMOR accusing him of sexually assaulting a subordinate during pre-mobilization training at Fort Bliss. On paper, the packet looked bad. It accused him of using rank and au ... thority to separate a junior Soldier from her teammates, take her to a hotel, and have sex with her while she was too impaired to consent. But the packet did not tell the full story. It told her story. By the time Bilecki Law Group was retained, the allegation was already more than two years old. The night in question happened in 2018. The report came in 2020. By then, the evidence that would have mattered most was gone or missing. No strip club video. No hotel video. No preserved text thread showing the full lead-up. No SAFE kit. No immediate report. No recorded CID interview provided with the GOMOR packet. So we reconstructed the night ourselves. Our client and the accuser already knew each other. They had a prior sexual relationship. She was texting him from Jaguar's, a strip club near Fort Bliss, and wanted him to come meet her. When he arrived, she was not unconscious. She was not passed out on a couch. She was not some unknown woman being carried out of a bar by a stranger. She was socializing, interacting with people, drinking water, and choosing to leave with a man she already knew and had already been intimate with. Her friends were initially concerned because they did not understand the relationship. That is not the same as our client using rank to drag a subordinate away from her teammates. We proved he was not her team leader. He was not her supervisor. He did not have positional authority over her that night. We obtained and used unit timeline evidence showing she was not assigned under him. That directly undercut one of the central claims in the GOMOR. We also showed what happened after the alleged assault. The accuser did not immediately separate from him and report. She stayed with him. The next morning, they woke up together, showered, went to get her bag, went to Walgreens for Plan B, went to Denny's, ran errands, went to the UPS store, handled nails and a haircut, and then returned to the same hotel room to lie down, talk, cuddle, and make out before checking out. Those facts were not minor details. They were the case. The Government packet also leaned on a witness who was not even at Jaguar's that night. He later became the accuser's boyfriend, had been her supervisor, and was living with her when the allegation moved forward. He added details about events he did not personally witness. He also had obvious reasons to dislike our client and protect his own relationship with the accuser. We exposed that. We also identified the witnesses CID missed. One of the most important was the accuser's former roommate, a Miami-Dade Police Officer who lived with her during the relevant period and deployed with her afterward. She knew the accuser, knew the relationship history, knew what was said after the night at Jaguar's, and knew the later relationship with the supervisor. CID did not get that statement. We did. Then we built the packet the Army should have built before issuing a career-ending reprimand. The rebuttal included a detailed defense memorandum, timeline evidence, financial records from the relevant dates, social media evidence, witness information, and a substantial character packet from senior military leaders, CID personnel, law enforcement professionals, USSOUTHCOM security leaders, and Soldiers who had served with our client for years. After reviewing the rebuttal, the Commanding General rescinded the GOMOR. He then personally called our office to thank us for the work we did, for exonerating his Soldier, and for the work we do for Soldiers facing allegations like this. That does not happen often. It happened here because the facts were there. They just had to be found, organized, and put in front of the decision-maker in a way that could not be ignored.

Military law

Bilecki Walks Nine-Specification GCM Off the Charge Sheet Through R.C.M. 604 Withdrawal and Wins BOI Retention

Apr 15, 2022

OUTCOME: All nine specifications dismissed under R.C.M. 604; NJP and Page 11 imposed; BOI voted retention; Marine retained on active duty.

A Marine Chief Warrant Officer 2 with multiple combat deployments and a clean disciplinary history was facing a referred general court-martial at MCAS Iwakuni on nine specifications across UCMJ Article ... s 92, 93, and 133. Maximum exposure on the charge sheet at general court-martial: years of confinement, Dismissal, federal felony record, and end of commission. The Investigating Officer interviewed virtually every Marine in the unit. Five Marines' complaints were deemed credible enough to support a Report of Misconduct. The Convening General offered NJP. Our client refused it. He wanted the case in front of a jury. The Government preferred Article 92 sexual harassment, Article 93 cruelty and maltreatment, and Article 133 conduct unbecoming charges and referred the matter to a general court-martial. That is when our client retained Bilecki. The defense fight at the GCM was venue. Japan was still under COVID entry restrictions that kept civilian defense counsel out of the country. We moved for transfer of venue to a CONUS location where civilian counsel could appear. The Military Judge indicated the venue change would be granted. Trial Counsel had a choice: try the case in a CONUS forum where the case would be litigated to verdict, or withdraw. The Government then routed the case through the administrative track. The defense argument at the BOI carried three pieces. The complaining Corporal and several other complainants had separated, been administratively separated themselves, or refused to participate by the time the Board convened. The Government's witness pool had collapsed. We surfaced the original retaliation context: the EO complaint had been filed in the days before the Corporal's transfer for the inappropriate relationship was published, and immediately after our client had removed him from the Meritorious Promotion Board selection pool. Our client took the stand at the BOI and walked the Board through the operational reality of the deckplate environment after the COVID-era PCS freeze rotated out his entire senior NCO contingent in one cycle, the standards he was holding the platoon to, and the corrective actions he had taken on the alleged inappropriate relationship that had triggered the EO complaint. Tim Bilecki traveled to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan for the motion practice and the Board of Inquiry. The Board convened at MCAS Iwakuni in August 2022. The Board's Findings Worksheet substantiated substandard performance of duty (failure to demonstrate acceptable qualities of leadership, unsatisfactory performance of a Warrant Officer), a violation of Article 92, and a violation of Article 133. On the question of separation, the Board's recommendation was direct: the Board found that none of the reasons supported separation from the naval service and recommended closing the case. No minority report. For a Marine Chief Warrant Officer 2 with multiple combat deployments who walked into the case with a nine-specification GCM charge sheet, Dismissal exposure on conviction, the commission on the line, and a Board of Inquiry on the back end, that was a different ending than the one the Government was driving toward.