Bilecki Represents Marine Corporal Facing 17 Charges at Article 32 at MCB Quantico
Jul 25, 2025
OUTCOME: Pre-preferral and Article 32 representation. Article 32 PHO recommended GCM. Final disposition outside scope of BLG engagement.
A Marine Corporal at MCB Quantico was under an OSTC-NCR investigation that ultimately produced a referred general court-martial on a seventeen-specification charge sheet. One Article 134 specification ...for possession of child pornography. Thirteen Article 120c specifications for indecent recording of a fellow Marine. Three Article 112a specifications for wrongful possession of testosterone, trenbolone, and nandrolone. Maximum exposure on a referred Article 134 child pornography conviction at general court-martial: years of confinement, mandatory Dishonorable Discharge, federal felony record, and Tier I federal sex offender registration.
Our client retained Bilecki at the OSTC target letter stage in mid-2024, before any preferral.
We engaged at the investigation stage and through the Article 32 preliminary hearing.
We secured a Defense-Litigation Resource Fund authorization for Patrick Eller of Metadata Forensics LLC as the defense digital forensics consultant, with scope covering the Cellebrite extraction methodology, Telegram metadata, and alternative explanations for the recovered files. We filed a Notice of Representation invoking Article 31 in response to the OSTC target letter. We submitted excludable delay requests. After our client was placed on suicide watch at Rappahannock Regional Jail during pretrial confinement, we filed an R.C.M. 706 inquiry for a sanity board on capacity and responsibility.
The Article 32 hearing took place in May 2025. The preliminary hearing officer recommended referral to a general court-martial.
The engagement concluded after the Article 32 stage. Subsequent additional charges surfaced beyond the original Article 134, Article 120c, and Article 112a charge sheet, and BLG's representation did not continue to final disposition.
Military law
Bilecki Closes Article 121 Larceny GCM on Army 1LT at Fort Sam Houston with Charges Withdrawn and Dismissed After Article 32
Jul 11, 2025
OUTCOME: Charges withdrawn and dismissed after Article 32.
OSTC preferred two larceny specifications against an Army officer over less than four hundred dollars in clothing taken from the Fort Sam Houston PX. We fought it at the Article 32, and the charges wer...e withdrawn and dismissed.
The government's proof was not thin. PX loss prevention had surveillance from two consecutive days showing her taking clothing into dressing rooms, removing tags, paying for other items, and leaving without paying for the rest. Security Forces tied the transactions to her card, brought her in, advised her of her rights, and got a sworn statement admitting she took items on both dates.
That is usually enough to push a case like this straight through.
It did not here.
Tim Bilecki got involved while the case was moving toward court-martial. We retained Patrick Eller as our investigator, worked the case, and fought it at the Article 32. The immediate commander was already against taking this officer to trial. We used that. Then we pushed the issue directly through our written matters and our argument at the hearing. The hearing officer came out against court-martial as well.
After the Article 32, the charges were withdrawn and dismissed.
Military law
Bilecki Reduces Likely Court Martial to NJP on Driving Misconduct Only on Navy CDR at Naples; No Court Martial, No Show Cause
Jun 20, 2025
OUTCOME: Likely court-martial matter reduced to NJP on driving-related misconduct only. No court-martial. No show cause / BOI.
This was an overseas Navy officer misconduct case in Naples, Italy involving alleged assault, leaving the scene of a vehicle accident, reckless operation of a vehicle, and conduct unbecoming. A Navy Co...mmander took his wife to Joia nightclub for a rare night out, got into a brawl with locals after a man put his hands on her, got choked unconscious by security, and then hit two cars getting his bleeding wife out of Sant'Antimo. By the next day, locals were saying the driver looked drunk or on drugs, and the case was moving in a direction that looked far worse than mast. Tim Bilecki reduced the matter to NJP on driving-related misconduct only.
The command paperwork made this look like an overseas officer misconduct case. The facts showed something very different: a husband trying to get his injured wife out of a violent situation in a foreign country.
What actually happened that night mattered. He was the designated driver. He had not been drinking. That mattered because the local narrative was already moving toward drunk or drugged driving. While he was at the bar getting water, a local man repeatedly groped his wife and tried to kiss her. He intervened. Security swarmed him, dragged him outside "like a piece of meat," and one of the bouncers put him in a chokehold hard enough to knock him unconscious.
When he came to, he realized they had been separated. He saw his wife coming out of the club, yelled for her to stay there while he got the car, and reversed into a Fiat trying to reach her. At that point, at least three men surrounded her, banged on his window, tried to open the door, and yelled in Italian as she got into the passenger seat visibly injured and bleeding. Minutes later, still trying to get clear of Sant'Antimo on narrow streets and sharp turns, he struck a second parked vehicle.
That was the heart of the case. Not some simple hit and run. Not some drunk officer joyride through Naples. A nightclub assault on his wife, a violent response from security, a chokehold, a chaotic street confrontation, and two collisions while trying to get out of a bad situation. For a senior Navy officer overseas, that kind of case can get away from you fast.
Overseas cases involving local civilians can move fast because commands know the host nation is watching. That pressure can turn a chaotic night into a career-ending officer case before the full facts are sorted out. The initial command paperwork opened as a preliminary inquiry into reportable misconduct before the matter was steered into NJP proceedings.
Tim Bilecki got involved before the matter settled into that NJP lane and did the work that changed the outcome. We investigated the facts, built out the duress defense, documented the assault on his wife, used her sworn affidavit and photographs of her injuries, and forced the command to look at the full sequence instead of the ugliest soundbite version of the event.
Bilecki's NJP rebuttal put the case where it belonged: a violent chain of events that led to driving misconduct, not the kind of bloated overseas officer case that should end in court-martial.
That work mattered because the result was a big one. Instead of preferral and the kind of high visibility court-martial that can wreck a senior officer's career, the matter was resolved at NJP, and only on the driving-related misconduct. No court-martial. No show cause / BOI. For this level of alleged misconduct involving a Navy Commander overseas, that was a major save.
Military law
Army SSG's Kadena DUI Ends at Article 15 and GOMOR; No Separation
Jun 13, 2025
OUTCOME: Article 15 imposed and not appealed. GOMOR permanently filed in AMHRR. HRC RET13 / QMP referral notified. NOT processed for administrative separation.
This was an Army Staff Sergeant at U.S. Army Network Enterprise Center – Okinawa stopped at a SOFA field sobriety checkpoint at Gate 1, Kadena AFB, in March 2025. The defense fight kept the case at Art...icle 15 / GOMOR / QMP-referral level, off the administrative separation track.
The LifeLock breath result at the gate was 0.080 BrAC. Approximately three hours later at the Torii Station MP precinct, our client provided a second breathalyzer sample at 0.035 BrAC. SOFA driving privileges were revoked.
The defense narrative was the next-morning timing.
The Government's case was that, the evening prior at around 1930, our client, his spouse, and their seven-year-old daughter had eaten and drunk with friends at an izakaya outside Kadena. A senior NCO in the friend group asked for a ride to the airport the following morning. The family hired a daikō (designated-driver service) home in their own vehicle around 2230. Our client stopped drinking. He woke around 0630 feeling fine and drove the senior NCO toward the airport. The DUI checkpoint stop occurred approximately 50 minutes later.
The Field Grade Article 15 was imposed by the Battalion Commander. Item 4a finding: Guilty of All Specifications. Closed hearing. Matters in defense, extenuation, and mitigation submitted in writing. The Soldier did not appeal. The Article 15 was final and unappealed by May 2025.
The GOMOR was filed permanently in the AMHRR by the Convening General in June 2025.
HRC RET13 / QMP referral was notified in June 2025. The QMP board was scheduled for October 2025 (FY26 Evaluation Board).
The Soldier was NOT processed for administrative separation.
At SOFA-context DUI cases overseas, the disposition track runs from Article 15 / GOMOR / QMP at the bottom up through administrative separation under AR 635-200 Chapter 14-12c at the top. To contain a DUI matter at Article 15 / GOMOR with QMP referral and stop the chain short of AR 635-200 Chapter 14, the defense put the next-morning timing, the daikō record, and the consequences already imposed (revocation of driving privileges, Article 15 forfeiture and reduction) in front of the chain at the moment when Chapter 14 initiation could have been ordered.
Military law
Bilecki Wins Full Acquittal on Army CPT at Camp Humphreys in Article 128b Domestic Violence and Strangulation Court Martial
Jun 06, 2025
OUTCOME: Full acquittal. Not guilty of all charges and specifications.
A domestic violence allegation in an overseas military marriage does not stay inside the marriage. It goes to CID, command, trial counsel, and, in serious cases, an officer panel thousands of miles fro...m home. That is what happened here. The government tried to turn a honeymoon fight in Hawaii into a strangulation case and took an Army Captain and pilot to a fully contested officer-panel general court-martial in Korea. The panel acquitted him of everything.
By October 2023, the marriage was already in trouble. They had fought in June and July. Divorce had come up by August. The condo purchase in Korea was already moving in the background. On 3 October 2023, while on the Big Island for their honeymoon, they argued over a car key, a late start to the day, and the same marriage problems they had been carrying for months. She said he forced her onto the bed, put his hand on her neck, and choked her for about ten seconds. He said she put her hands on him first and he slapped her hand away.
The government did not just have to prove what allegedly happened in that hotel room. It also had to explain everything that came after it. She did not leave Hawaii. The next day they went to Volcanoes National Park. After that they went snorkeling. Then they went scuba diving. She signed a scuba waiver stating she was in good mental and physical condition. They flew back to Korea on 10 October. The next day she re-engaged with Kookmin Bank about the mortgage process they had already started. On 14 October, he transferred roughly 81,000,000 KRW for the condo purchase. On 31 October, they closed on the condo together. She did not report the Hawaii allegation to CID until 7 March 2024. She filed for divorce in Korean court on 15 March 2024.
That timing mattered. The defense position was that the allegation surfaced when it did after the marriage had collapsed and the property fight was live, and that a domestic violence conviction in a U.S. court-martial would have carried real weight in the Korean divorce case. The defense tried the case through the timeline, the property dispute, and the months that followed the trip.
We did not handle it like a routine one-witness domestic allegation. We traveled to Korea multiple times, interviewed witnesses, and litigated motions. The defense team included Trent Struttmann of Cyber Agents as the digital forensic examiner. The government had the phones, the texts, and the trip photos, but it produced only a filtered extraction from the alleged victim's phone after CID had already created a broader extraction. That led to real motions work over missing digital evidence, deleted extraction material, and what the government chose to preserve versus what it chose to present.
Cross-examination drove the trial. We walked through the prior marital violence, the earlier divorce discussions, the Hawaii texts, the flights she claimed she could not get, the urgent-care texts, the honeymoon photos, the scuba activity, the bank records, the mortgage process, the 81 million KRW transfer, the condo closing, the delayed CID report, and the divorce filing.
The government asked the panel to decide the case on one person's account of a 10 second event in a private hotel room. The defense put the full timeline in front of the panel, including the marriage, the money, the property, and the five months that followed.
The proof had other problems. There was no report in Hawaii, no medical evidence from Hawaii, no useful corroboration from the resort, and no contemporaneous digital trail that matched the version of events the government asked the panel to accept.
The government took an Army Captain to a fully contested officer-panel general court-martial for domestic violence and strangulation. The panel acquitted him of all charges and specifications.
The marriage was over. The Army career was not.
Military law
Bilecki Holds 29-Specification Article 124 Frauds GCM on Air Force Lt Col to 30 Days, No Dismissal, Retirement Approved
May 02, 2025
OUTCOME: Charge sheet restructured from 29 to 15 specifications at referral. 30 days confinement. No Dismissal. Retirement approved.
An Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and former squadron commander was facing a referred general court-martial on a charge sheet that originally carried twenty-nine specifications of Article 124 frauds agai...nst the United States, spanning false lodging receipts and false travel claims for TDY trips across roughly sixteen months and a dozen and a half installations. Maximum exposure on a referred Article 124 frauds conviction at general court-martial across the original twenty-nine specifications: decades of confinement, Dismissal, federal felony record, end of commission, and total restitution liability for the entire claim spread.
The Government's case was that across that window of TDY travel our client had submitted Defense Travel System lodging receipts and travel claims at amounts higher than what had actually been incurred at each location. The Government had built a paper case across twenty-nine separate trips: the lodging receipt our client had submitted, the travel claim our client had submitted, and the inferred actual cost at each location.
Our client retained Bilecki at the Air Force investigation stage.
Across every charged TDY trip, we pulled the actual room receipts our client had paid out of his own pocket where the Government claimed false lodging, the photographs our client had taken inside the rooms at the Sand Dollar Inn and the Space Coast Inn and every other charged property, the front-desk records, and the corresponding actual lodging invoices. Trip by trip, we built a case-in-chief evidence package that put the Government's twenty-nine specifications next to the documentary record on what had actually been paid and where.
We submitted two formal Offers of Alternative Disposition tied to that documentary build. The first offer went in early in the year before the case was preferred. The second went in late in the year before referral. The two offers, paired with the spec-by-spec record, gave the convening authority a path off about half the charge sheet.
At the December 2024 referral to general court-martial, the convening authority withdrew and dismissed approximately half of the original twenty-nine specifications without prejudice and restructured the charge sheet to fifteen specifications.
The Plea Agreement on the back end paired with that restructure. The agreement explicitly prohibited the Military Judge from adjudging a Dismissal. The punitive discharge ceiling was off the table entirely. The fine the Plea Agreement contemplated was the exact dollar value of the false claims at issue, paying restitution through the sentence itself.
At the general court-martial, our client pleaded guilty to fourteen of the fifteen remaining specifications. Two of the fifteen were withdrawn and dismissed with prejudice at sentencing. The Military Judge adjudged 30 days confinement on each of the fourteen specifications, all confinement to run concurrently for a total of 30 days, plus a fine of $6,440.61 and a reprimand. No Dismissal. No reduction in pay grade. No forfeitures. The Military Judge recommended on the record that 23 days of the 30-day confinement be suspended until our client submitted his retirement application, with a further recommendation that the suspended portion be remitted at retirement.
Our client's retirement was approved.
For an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and former squadron commander who walked into the case with twenty-nine Article 124 frauds specifications on the charge sheet, Dismissal exposure, the end of the commission on the line, and total restitution liability for the entire claim spread, that was a different ending than the one the Government was driving toward.
Military law
Bilecki Walks Article 120 and Article 134 Off Charge Sheet After Arraignment for Army MAJ at Fort Moore
May 02, 2025
OUTCOME: Article 120 and Article 134 dismissed after arraignment. SPCM plea on Article 128 only. Medical retirement preserved.
An Army Major at Fort Moore was facing a referred general court-martial on Article 120 abusive sexual contact, three Article 128 assault consummated by a battery specifications, and Article 134 sexual ...harassment. The Article 120 was routed through the Office of Special Trial Counsel as a covered offense. Maximum exposure: years of confinement, mandatory Dismissal, federal felony record, federal sex offender registration, and the loss of a medical retirement that had earned out across years of service.
The medical retirement was the leverage.
Our client was on the Disability Evaluation System track. The retirement had earned out over years of service. A general court-martial referral with Dismissal-eligible Article 120 charges was the one thing that could pull it off the table. An officer cannot retire while a Dismissal-eligible court-martial is pending and cannot retire if a Dismissal is adjudged. The Government wanted Article 120 convictions at general court-martial. We wanted the Article 120 and the Article 134 sexual harassment off the case sheet entirely, the GCM forum off the case, and the medical retirement intact.
The trade was the negotiation.
Our client would plead guilty to two Article 128 specifications at a special court-martial, a forum where Dismissal cannot be adjudged. In exchange, the Government would dismiss the Article 120 abusive sexual contact specification after arraignment, dismiss the Article 134 sexual harassment specification after arraignment, dismiss one of the three Article 128 specifications after arraignment, withdraw the original general court-martial referral, re-refer the remaining two Article 128 specifications to a special court-martial, and not contest the medical retirement track. The Plea Agreement committed our client to submitting all documents required to facilitate the medical retirement within thirty days of acceptance of the guilty plea.
Our client's medical retirement processed.
For an Army Major who walked into the case with a referred Article 120 abusive sexual contact charge, the loss of a medical retirement on the line, and Dismissal on the table, that was a different ending than the one the Government was driving toward.
Military law
Bilecki Closes Article 120 OSTC Investigation and Article 92 Recharacterization on Marine SGT
Apr 18, 2025
OUTCOME: No Article 120 charge. Article 92 charge dismissed. Summary court-martial withdrawn. No action taken.
A Marine Corps Sergeant at Camp Pendleton was investigated after a night in San Diego with a junior Marine that involved alcohol, a strip club, and a consensual barracks encounter. The case was first t...reated as an Article 120, UCMJ sexual assault allegation and reviewed by the Office of Special Trial Counsel. After OSTC declined to prefer Article 120 charges and deferred the case back to command, the command tried to repackage the same night as an Article 92 unduly familiar relationship case. When that failed, the command looked at summary court-martial. It ended with nothing.
This was Marine liberty, alcohol, bad judgment, a strip club, and barracks sex. Not the wisest night of his career. But bad judgment is not sexual assault, and it should not become a career ending Article 92 case just because command was angry that the Article 120 allegation did not survive OSTC review.
Because the original allegation was a covered offense, OSTC reviewed it first. We were retained immediately after the investigation began and got involved while the case was still being treated as a covered offense investigation. After the witnesses were identified and the facts were developed, OSTC declined to prefer the Article 120 charges and deferred the case back to command.
That should have ended it.
It did not.
The command then tried to salvage the case by repackaging the same night as non-covered misconduct. It took the same night, the same witnesses, and the same facts, then tried to turn them into an unduly familiar relationship. On the Article 92 theory, no one needed a law degree to understand that the two had become familiar. The real question was whether command could take a consensual barracks encounter, after OSTC declined Article 120, and turn it into a career ending charge.
Tim Bilecki did not let the command write that story for him.
Bilecki Law Group built a detailed timeline of the entire night, from the first stop in San Diego through the barracks encounter and the next morning statements. We identified the witnesses who mattered and developed the evidence the command had ignored. The roommate evidence was critical. So was the proof that the junior Marine was talking like someone trying to stay out of trouble, not someone describing an assault.
We forced the command and prosecutors to deal with all of the facts, not just the clean version they wanted to charge. The junior Marine's conduct before the encounter mattered. Her statements during the night mattered. Her statements afterward mattered. The roommate evidence mattered. The timeline mattered. The command could not just ignore the parts that destroyed the sexual assault theory and then repackage the same night as something else.
Even then, the command kept pushing. In April 2025, it preferred a single Article 92 charge alleging an unduly familiar relationship. That charge was later dismissed. The command then looked at taking the matter to summary court-martial instead.
That was withdrawn too.
So the case ended where it should have ended in the first place. No Article 120 charge. No court-martial. No punishment. No action taken.
Military law
Bilecki Reduces Five Article 121 and 92 GCM Specs to 45 Days and No Dismissal
Apr 11, 2025
OUTCOME: Three specifications withdrawn and dismissed. Plea to two larceny specifications. 45 days concurrent confinement. No Dismissal.
A Navy Lieutenant Commander assigned to a watch billet at NSA Naples was facing a referred general court-martial on three Article 121 larceny specifications across two duty stations and two Article 92 ...specifications for violation of general regulations governing weapon and firearm possession in on-base housing. Maximum exposure on a referred Article 121 larceny conviction at general court-martial: years of confinement, Dismissal, federal felony record, federal firearm prohibition, and the financial liability that runs alongside any contested larceny conviction.
The Government had a hard case.
Our client retained Bilecki at the NCIS investigation stage.
A Navy Lieutenant Commander does not steal a MacBook from a Navy Exchange he can afford to walk into and pay for in cash unless something is wrong. We secured an independent forensic psychiatry evaluation that produced a kleptomania diagnosis. Kleptomania is a recognized impulse-control disorder in the diagnostic literature; it is clinically distinct from a moral failing or a calculated theft scheme. Once the diagnosis was on the record, the question for the Government changed. The case was no longer about whether to put a Lieutenant Commander out of the Navy with a Dismissal and a federal firearm prohibition. It was about how to resolve a documented mental health condition through the court-martial system without ending a twenty-year Navy career and a wartime intelligence officer's commission.
The Government took Dismissal off the table.
The Plea Agreement secured plea of guilty to the two NSA Naples Article 121 specifications, the prior San Diego specification withdrawn and dismissed without prejudice, both Article 92 firearms specifications withdrawn and dismissed without prejudice, no Dismissal under any circumstances, restitution-equivalent forfeitures totaling the value of the items at issue, and trial by Military Judge alone.
The Military Judge accepted the plea. Sentence: 45 days confinement on each of the two larceny specifications, run concurrently for a total of 45 days. Forfeiture of $2,500 per month for five months, totaling $12,500. The Military Judge recommended that two months of the forfeiture be suspended. No Dismissal. No fine. Our client reported to the military confinement facility at Sembach, Germany. The Convening Authority took no action on findings or sentence; Entry of Judgment was signed in late May 2025.
For a Navy Lieutenant Commander at NSA Naples with a five-specification charge sheet covering two duty stations, NCIS apprehension on documented loss prevention footage, recovered firearms in on-base housing, Dismissal exposure on conviction, and a federal felony record on the line, that was a different ending than the one the Government was driving toward.
Military law
Bilecki Wins Dismissal of Article 120 GCM at Fort Drum After Missing Texts Surface
Mar 21, 2025
OUTCOME: Article 120 and Article 128 withdrawn and dismissed pre-trial. No court-martial. No SORNA.
An Army Corporal at Fort Drum was facing a referred general court-martial on Article 120 sexual assault and Article 128 assault consummated by a battery, with the Article 120 routed through the Office ...of Special Trial Counsel as a covered offense. Maximum exposure on a referred Article 120 sexual assault conviction at general court-martial: years of confinement, mandatory Dishonorable Discharge, federal felony record, and Tier III federal sex offender registration.
Our client retained Bilecki at the CID investigation stage.
Patrick Eller ran the phone.
Eller pulled the full text record between our client and the alleged victim during the relevant window. The Government's CID search authorization affidavit had quoted the texts during that window and had left out about half of them. The text the Government had cited as the alleged victim's distress reaction read very differently with the texts on either side of it included.
We filed a Motion to Suppress on the affidavit. The Military Judge denied the motion at the trial level, but the documentary record on the omission and on what Eller's forensic work had surfaced was on the record, and the affiant's credibility was on it.
Dean Wideman, the defense DNA expert, took the USACIL DNA report and the alleged victim's account apart, side by side. The pattern Wideman documented from the Government's own DNA work did not line up with the alleged victim's account of the conduct.
The two M.R.E. 412 motions ran in parallel.
The first put before the panel a documented prior abusive relationship the alleged victim had been in with a married Soldier, a relationship with documented physical violence, threats with a firearm, and a BAH fraud overlap that gave the alleged victim a documented motive to fabricate to the witness she had first disclosed to. The Military Judge granted the motion under the constitutionally required exception. The second M.R.E. 412 motion put before the panel the alleged victim's sexual relationship with that same outcry witness, plus four images of the alleged victim. The Military Judge granted that motion as well, on the same constitutionally required ground.
For an Army Corporal who walked into the case with an OSTC-preferred Article 120 sexual assault charge, a CID search authorization, an outcry, a medical exam, a developing DNA file, with the trial week set, that was a different ending than the one the Government was driving toward.
