Bilecki Wins Full Acquittal in Camp Humphreys Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Trial

Bilecki Wins Full Acquittal in Camp Humphreys Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Trial

May 2024

Camp Humphreys, Republic of Korea

Army Specialist – E-4

Allegations: UCMJ Article 80 Attempted Sexual Contact (1 specification); UCMJ Article 120 Aggravated Sexual Contact by Unlawful Force (1 specification); UCMJ Article 128 Assault (3 specifications); UCMJ Article 128b Domestic Violence

Facts

The government took an Army Specialist to a fully contested general court-martial at Camp Humphreys with three alleged victims and six specifications across four UCMJ articles. The maximum exposure ran into decades of confinement, the possibility of a punitive discharge, federal sex offender registration on the Article 120, and a federal felony record. The defense had to win the panel without M.R.E. 412.

The Government alleged that on a single August 2022 night our client attempted to touch the breasts of one Specialist, then by unlawful force touched her buttocks a second time, then bit her ear and pulled her hair as the same night's intimate-partner battery. Separately, the Government alleged our client had strangled a different Private First Class earlier that year, bit her ear, kissed her mouth, and put his thumb in her mouth across the same window. A third Article 128 specification alleged he had touched a third Soldier on the torso in February 2022. Three alleged victims. Six specifications. Four articles.

The defense had moved under M.R.E. 412 to admit evidence of a documented prior consensual sexual relationship between our client and the first alleged victim, on a consent and mistake-of-fact theory. The Military Judge denied the motion. The defense did not get to put the prior relationship in front of the panel.

Cross-examination became central to the defense.

Tim Bilecki traveled to Camp Humphreys, Korea for the contested general court-martial. Trial proceeded before an enlisted panel.

The cross of the first alleged victim was the centerpiece. We walked her through the documented post-breakup motive: the boyfriend's confrontation with our client in Seoul and the rumors she had been spreading inside the unit. We walked her through the CCTV record from the barracks, which showed approximately twenty minutes in the room rather than the "an hour or two" she had described. We walked her through the SAFE examination that surfaced no head, neck, or bite-mark injuries and only a thigh bruise that could have come from the prior week's Humvee rollover training. We walked her through the absence of any contemporaneous report and her decision to shower and wash her clothes immediately.

The cross of the second alleged victim walked through her months-long delay in reporting (she did not come forward until August 2022), her own Instagram messages with our client during the alleged window that did not match the assault narrative, and her recorded statement to CID that her only contact with our client in months had been professional.

The cross of the CID Special Agents, three of them across the case file in a documented investigative handoff, surfaced the investigation defects: no phone download, no boyfriend interview, no DNA or clothing collection, and a rejected pretext call. Three agents touched the case. None of them did the work necessary to bring it into a courtroom.

The panel acquitted on every charge and every specification. Article 80 attempt: not guilty. Article 120 aggravated sexual contact: not guilty. All three Article 128 specifications across the two PFCs: not guilty. Article 128b domestic violence: not guilty.

No conviction and no sex offender registration from these charges.

Result: Full acquittal across all charges and specifications. No federal conviction, no SORNA, no federal felony.

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FAQ

Q: How did Bilecki defend the case after the judge excluded the prior sexual relationship?
Bilecki worked with the evidence the panel could hear. The barracks CCTV gave him a timeline to compare with the first complainant's account. The examination findings let him test the claimed injuries. The second complainant's messages and statements gave him a separate set of contradictions to put before the panel. The ruling made those details more important; it did not prevent a defense.

Q: Why did the investigative omissions matter?
Bilecki questioned the agents about specific work that had not been done, including collecting phone evidence and interviewing the boyfriend. A change of agents is not itself a defect, and a delayed report or an examination without injury does not establish that an assault did not happen. The defense showed the panel how the particular omissions left important claims untested. The panel acquitted our client of every charge and specification.