Sting Charges Dismissed in Exchange for Indecent Language Plea; Thirty Days and BCD

Sting Charges Dismissed in Exchange for Indecent Language Plea; Thirty Days and BCD

February 2025

Fort Riley, Kansas

Army Sergeant – E-5

Allegations: UCMJ Article 80 Attempted Sexual Abuse of a Child Involving Indecent Communication; UCMJ Article 80 Attempted Sexual Assault of a Child

Facts

This was an Army Sergeant assigned to a 1st Infantry Division armor battalion at Fort Riley facing two Article 80 attempted Article 120b specifications arising from an online vigilante sting operation, with the Article 120b predicate routing the matter through the Office of Special Trial Counsel as a covered offense. Maximum exposure on a referred Article 80 attempted Article 120b conviction at general court martial: years of confinement, possible Dishonorable Discharge, federal felony record, and sex offender registration.

The Government's case was that while attending the Advanced Leaders Course at Fort Moore, our client matched on a dating application with a profile that listed the profile operator’s age as twenty-four, exchanged messages, and continued the exchange after the profile operator dropped age in messages first to sixteen and then to fifteen. Our client and the profile operator planned a meet at a Walmart. Our client drove to the Walmart and entered the store. The profile operator was an eighteen year old high school senior in Georgia operating a "predator catcher" Tinder profile he had set up after watching content of similar operations on social media; the profile operator was not law enforcement. The profile operator filmed our client at the Walmart on his phone. Our client left the Walmart without contact. The profile operator turned the phone over to CID.

Our client retained Bilecki within days of the CID notification.

The dating application profile our client had matched with had been listed at twenty-four years of age. The platform's age verification page had been cleared at twenty-four. Our client's contemporaneous responses to the age-drop messages on the record included an immediate "Woah," statements about legality, and an insistence that he speak with the profile operator on a voice call to verify the profile operator was real. The profile operator then had a friend's girlfriend speak with our client to satisfy the verification. The Stipulation of Fact also captured that our client had walked away from the Walmart without contact when the situation made him uncomfortable. The defense surfaced the platform record, the verification call record, and the walk-away record to OSTC trial counsel. The defense paired that with an expert request for a defense digital forensics consultant on the integrity of the profile operator’s CID-extracted phone data, including documented gaps in the produced message record.

The Plea Agreement secured: both Article 80 attempted Article 120b specifications withdrawn and dismissed without prejudice; a new Article 134 indecent language specification preferred and pleaded to at a special court martial; a sentence locked at thirty days confinement and a Bad Conduct Discharge with no other punishment available; both parties' agreement on the record that the plea did not subject our client to sex offender registration with Box 30 on the Statement of Trial Result unchecked.

The military judge accepted the plea at the special court martial. Our client pleaded guilty to the single Article 134 indecent language specification. The Government withdrew the Article 80 attempted Article 120b charge sheet. Sentence at the lock: thirty days confinement, Bad Conduct Discharge. No federal sex offender registration. No Tier III SORNA.

Result: Article 80 attempted Article 120b specifications withdrawn and dismissed. SPCM plea to single Article 134 indecent language specification. 30 days confinement, BCD. No SORNA.

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FAQ

Q: What did Bilecki examine in the civilian sting?
He looked at the original adult profile, the later changes in the stated age, our client's responses, the verification call and what happened at Walmart. He also sought digital forensic assistance to examine gaps in the produced messages. A civilian recording is not inherently unreliable; the defense challenged the completeness and meaning of this particular record.

Q: Did the agreement erase the conviction or discharge?
No. Our client was convicted of indecent language and received thirty days of confinement and a bad conduct discharge. The attempted child-sex offenses were withdrawn and dismissed without prejudice. No registration obligation resulted from the disposition. The unchecked reporting box recorded that position; it did not override registration law.