Bilecki Challenges Harassment Finding and Presents Lieutenant’s Service; GOMOR Permanently Filed

Bilecki Challenges Harassment Finding and Presents Lieutenant’s Service; GOMOR Permanently Filed

June 2022

Fort Carson, Colorado

Army Second Lieutenant | O-1

Allegations: Sexual Harassment under AR 600-20 Paragraph 7-7; Hostile Work Environment; Conduct Unbecoming an Officer; AR 600-37 General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand

Facts

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-environment SHARP case.

The party was at another Soldier's house. Several junior officers and staff NCOs from the Field Artillery battalion were there. The Lieutenant was invited by another junior officer and arrived by POV. He initially declined alcohol because he was not much of a drinker and had planned to drive somewhere later that night. The other junior officers kept pressing him to take shots with them, and he eventually gave in. One "mortar round" led to another. After several rounds, he was severely intoxicated.

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.

Another lieutenant saw the message, went over to him, and found him sitting alone on a bench, intoxicated and incoherent. The other lieutenant told him what he had done, took his phone, typed a corrective message into the same group chat, showed it to him, received some kind of affirmative response, and sent it from his phone. The corrective message went out almost immediately.

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 this particular text, its context and the immediate corrective message did not meet that standard. A single incident can qualify if sufficiently severe; the absence of a pattern was part of the argument, not an automatic defense.

The rebuttal also gave the Commanding General the rest of the Lieutenant's story. He came from a working-class family in the Bronx, went through Army ROTC, selected Field Artillery, completed BOLC, passed his Field Artillery tables, and reported to Fort Carson as a Fire Direction Officer. He deployed with the unit to the National Training Center, worked hard to learn the job, and earned support from peers and leaders who described the text as out of character.

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.

Result: GOMOR permanently filed.

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FAQ

Q: Why did the severe-or-pervasive standard matter in this GOMOR rebuttal?
Because the GOMOR rested on a hostile-work-environment sexual harassment theory under AR 600-20 paragraph 7-7. The rebuttal accepted that the text was inappropriate, but argued that one off-duty drunken text in a peer group chat was not the same as repeated workplace sexual harassment. The complainant and reporting witness both stated there was no prior pattern of inappropriate comments.

Q: Why did the immediate corrective message matter?
Because the crude text was not followed by more sexual comments, pressure, or continued misconduct. Another lieutenant saw the message, found him intoxicated, took his phone, and sent a corrective message from the same phone into the same group chat almost immediately. That did not erase the original message, but it mattered when evaluating whether this was one drunken mistake or a broader hostile-work-environment pattern.

Q: Why include mitigation if the text was clearly wrong?
Because a GOMOR filing decision is not just about whether misconduct occurred. It is also about what response is appropriate. The rebuttal gave the Commanding General the Lieutenant's full background: ROTC, Field Artillery training, Fort Carson service, NTC, work as a Fire Direction Officer, peer support, combatives, wrestling coaching, church involvement, community service, and character letters, including from a unit victim advocate who recognized the seriousness of the conduct but described it as out of character.