Perhaps one of the more distressing realities surrounding the military’s widely abused campaign to root out sexual misconduct is the fact that even civilians have gotten in on the abuse. In this case, when a young Sailor rejected the amorous advances of a civilian former girlfriend she knew exactly what to do. She knew that in the era of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) an allegation was as good as gold and enough to destroy a service member’s life. She didn’t hesitate to use it, but thankfully this young Sailor was willing to fight back.
The Sailor in question was stationed at Naval Base Guam where he met a female civilian through a dating app during the summer of 2019. After a brief romantic relationship, as most summer loves do, it all came to an end. Despite the relationship’s end, the two remained in contact with one another while the female would frequently use emotional manipulation and the pretext of emotional distress to meet up with the Sailor.
In August of 2020, she used that same behavior to arrange a meeting with the Sailor where a long walk ensued and ended with a moment of mutual intimacy. It was a hug, kiss, and no further actions on behalf of the Sailor. Over the next 16 months the female was still intent on rekindling the relationship, but the young Sailor had had enough with her erratic behavior. He ended the relationship and cut her off completely.
That’s when she used their last romantic encounter, the 2020 hug and kiss, and filed fresh claims of sexual abuse against the sailor. Our client knew this was complete garbage, but in the era of SAPR his command was gearing up to absolutely destroy his life. That’s when he reached out to military sexual assault lawyer Tim Bilecki and that’s when we jumped into the fight on his behalf.
The accuser’s narrative just didn’t add up and it was riddled with inconsistencies. Moreover, her statements were directly contradicted by a neighbor and her own father. We were able to uncover crucial evidence, including DBIDs reports that proved our client was on base at the time of the alleged assault. We jumped into the accuser’s past and this lady was a piece of work. She had a demonstrable history of manipulative behavior when it comes to men and she even created fake social media accounts in order to try and lure our client back into the relationship. Bottom line, she just wasn’t credible.
Bilecki was able to take the evidence and working closely with the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) we were able to keep this from escalating into a court martial. Steering it towards the Non-Judicial Punishment (NJP) course of action, that’s where we made our fight and that’s where we made our stand.
We presented a solid and compelling array of rebuttal materials and completely dismantled the allegations against our client. Truth be told, it wasn’t even close and as a result our client was found not guilty at the NJP. Our client was free to resume his life in the Navy. However, here is the moral of the story. Had he not fought back, that same flimsy case would have been enough to destroy him. In the era of SAPR, you simply can’t assume the truth will set you free. You have to fight for that truth to be seen and heard or commands will roll over you just to look tough on the matter of sexual misconduct. Your innocence is not enough to set you free and you’ll need experienced counsel by your side to fight on your behalf.