Bilecki Presents Caller’s Messages and Major’s Account Before Investigation; No Charges or Adverse Action

Bilecki Presents Caller’s Messages and Major’s Account Before Investigation; No Charges or Adverse Action

May 2023

Edwards Air Force Base, California

Air Force Major – O-4

Allegations: Sexual Misconduct Allegation Involving a Minor, Reported in 2023 About Conduct in 2010

Facts

An Air Force Major at Edwards Air Force Base, California received a phone call thirteen years after the alleged conduct. The caller claimed to be an ex-girlfriend from 2010. For an O-4 with a security clearance and a senior career trajectory, an investigation of an allegation involving a minor could threaten his career and lead to serious criminal or administrative consequences. The applicable offense and punishment would depend on the conduct alleged and the law in effect in 2010; no court-martial charges were preferred here.

In May 2023, the caller began texting our client. Her own texts framed the matter as her mother's wrongdoing, not our client's. She told our client that her counselor had recommended she "make a disclosure," that "when we first met, it wasn't me you were talking to. My mom was using a couple of accounts pretending to be me. And she was setting me up with a lot of guys." On the phone call that followed, the caller asked our client whether her mother had paid him to date her, take pictures or videos of her, and whether they had been "real."

The caller's identity itself had problems. The phone number was not registered to her. She had moved out of Colorado over a decade earlier. Counsel checked the caller’s background as part of assessing who was making the contact and what the messages actually alleged.

Our client did the right thing the same day.

He drove home, briefed his wife, self reported the contact in a signed Memorandum for Record to his First Sergeant, and retained civilian counsel in Colorado Springs who ran a background check on the caller.

Our client retained Bilecki within days of the trigger phone call. Notice of Representation went to the servicing OSJA at Edwards AFB the following day, before any OSI investigation had been opened.

We locked the case down pre-investigation. The complainant's own texts framing the matter as her mother's wrongdoing, the contemporaneous Memorandum for Record our client had created on the day of the contact, and the credibility record civilian counsel had developed on the caller went up to the OSJA together.

No OSI investigation was titled. No charges. No NJP. No Board of Inquiry. No GOMOR. No Letter of Reprimand. The Major continued in service.

Result: Matter closed pre-investigation. No OSI title. No charges. Major continued in service.

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FAQ

Q: What did Bilecki present before an investigation opened?
Tim sent the legal office the caller’s actual messages, the Major’s memorandum documenting the contact and the information developed by civilian counsel. The texts described alleged conduct by the caller’s mother that needed to be distinguished from anything attributed to our client.

Q: What happened to the allegation?
The matter ended without an OSI investigation, court-martial charges or adverse administrative action. The Major continued serving. The result was achieved at that early stage; the case did not involve a trial or a finding of not guilty.