An Army Captain was caught in a joint U.S.–Philippine operation entitled “Operation Swift Traveler,” which sought to locate and apprehend adults seeking to travel to the Philippines to have sex with minors and trafficked persons. While the details of this case are extraordinarily complicated, our client was accused of seeking out minors in the Philippines and later traveling to the Philippines with the intent to have sex with them.
The investigation into this case took over a year while our client was pending charges. Once our client was charged, he was facing a maximum sentence of several hundred years in prison. Tim Bilecki was retained early on in the investigation and utilized a defense investigator, a computer forensic expert and several other experts located in the Philippines. The defense team understood that the government would likely be seeking 40 or more years in confinement.
Tim brought the defense investigation and expert work into the plea negotiations, then traveled to Korea to negotiate directly with the prosecution. With the government expected to seek decades in prison, the defense’s objective was an agreement that sharply limited what the court could impose. After a week of negotiations, Tim secured an 18-month confinement ceiling.
Other high-profile cases involving Operation Swift Traveler:
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/pampanga/local-news/2016/10/07/2-get-ax-attempted-trafficking-3-minors-502326
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/130701/100-nude-photos-of-children-seized-in-us-came-from-ph-nbi
Prior results do not predict future outcomes.