Air Force Major’s Charges Withdrawn with Resignation in Lieu of Trial

Air Force Major’s Charges Withdrawn with Resignation in Lieu of Trial

October 2024

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

Air Force Major – O-4

Allegations: UCMJ Article 92 Failure to Obey a Lawful General Order; UCMJ Article 134 Possession of Child Pornography (4 specifications)

Facts

An Air Force Major at Wright-Patterson AFB was facing a referred general court-martial on a five-specification charge sheet: one Article 92 specification for deployed AOR sexually explicit material possession at Al Udeid AB, Qatar, and four Article 134 specifications charging knowing wrongful possession of CSAM. Two of the Article 134 specifications covered U.S. conduct between 2016 and 2018. Two covered deployed AOR conduct in early 2020. Maximum exposure: decades of confinement, a possible dismissal from the service, federal felony conviction, and federal sex offender registration.

AFOSI had not started the file from a CSAM tip. The file started in November 2019 when our client's then-wife reported to base Security Forces alleging our client had shared her private photographs with another woman. Our client's then-wife was herself an Air Force Captain divorcing our client during his Al Udeid AB deployment and conducting an affair with a different Air Force Major during the deployment window. The investigation expanded from that predicate to a deployed AOR Apple device search authorization at AUAB in February 2020, an iPhone manual search the next day, and an external hard drive search the day after that. The CSAM the Government charged was found in deleted file space on the external hard drive. AFOSI's full digital forensic effort across the seized devices located approximately a few dozen CSAM files in deleted file space, among tens of thousands of legal adult pornographic files and hundreds of thousands of non-pornographic files.

Our client retained Bilecki at the AFOSI investigation stage.

We filed a Motion to Suppress Digital Evidence challenging the probable cause nexus between the deployed AOR iPhone search authorization and the subsequent external hard drive search. The Military Judge denied the motion. The suppression record was developed and preserved for the Resignation in Lieu of Court-Martial pathway.

We filed a 56-page RILO package in March 2023. The package documented the deleted file space posture of the CSAM count, the documentary record of the investigation's predicate, our client's career record (Bronze Star earned in Afghanistan, Meritorious Service Medal as a wing executive officer, consistent top stratification across multiple wing assignments), and a slate of character letters from senior officers across the Air Force.

A second round of allegations from the ex-wife surfaced in summer 2023.

She filed a "revenge porn" report against our client tied to a Massachusetts area code phone number. We coordinated with the Ohio police department where the ex-wife had filed the report. Police identified the actual perpetrator as an unrelated third party. The Ohio civil protection order on those allegations was denied at trial. The family law counsel at the parallel custody case documented five contempt findings entered against the ex-wife in a letter to defense counsel that fall.

With the unrelated third party identified and the pattern letter on the record, the RILO was reactivated.

The Government filed a Notice of Withdrawal of all charges in September 2024. The Secretary of the Air Force granted the RILO in October 2024 with Under Other Than Honorable Conditions characterization.

Result: Charges withdrawn. SecAF approved Resignation in Lieu of Court-Martial with Under Other Than Honorable Conditions characterization. No court-martial conviction or resulting registration.

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FAQ

Q: How did Bilecki pursue a resolution after the suppression motion was denied?
He assembled a fifty-six-page resignation package addressing the digital evidence, the course of the investigation and the Major's service. When another allegation emerged, the defense worked with civilian counsel and police to establish that an unrelated third party was responsible. Bilecki put that development and the supporting records before the authorities considering the resignation.

Q: What did the resignation resolve?
The government withdrew the charges and the Secretary of the Air Force approved resignation with an Under Other Than Honorable Conditions discharge. Our client avoided a court-martial conviction and registration arising from these charges. He still left the Air Force with an adverse discharge characterization.