SHAPE: The American Presence at NATO's Strategic Headquarters
Just north of Mons in French speaking Wallonia, near the village of Casteau, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe is the strategic military headquarters of NATO, commanded by a senior U.S. military officer who serves as Supreme Allied Commander Europe. The U.S. Army Garrison Benelux supports the thousands of American Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, and Marines assigned to the NATO staff here and at Chièvres Air Base twenty kilometers west, most of them living on the economy in the villages around Mons rather than behind a fence. It is a headquarters posting heavy with officers and senior noncommissioned officers, a multinational community where careers are made on reputation, and a command that knows a disciplinary problem at the alliance's own headquarters reflects on NATO itself.
A serious allegation at a joint NATO headquarters, surrounded by allied officers and a long way from any American courtroom, is the wrong place to leave your defense to chance. Court martial defense is the entire practice of Bilecki Law Group, and the firm tries these cases across Europe out of its office in Tampa. We fly in to where the case is, because when a career built over years is on the line, what decides a contested case is the experience of the lawyer in the courtroom, not the distance to Belgium.
The Soldier Who Held the Junction Alone in Belgium
Mons itself was freed by American armor in September 1944, and that same winter, at the eastern end of Belgium, the U.S. Army held the line through the worst fighting of the war. When the Germans came through the Ardennes in December, the defense of one key road junction near Rocherath came down to Private First Class William A. Soderman of the 2nd Infantry Division, left alone with a bazooka after his assistant was wounded and pulled back. He waited in the gathering dark until a column of five German tanks was at point blank range, then stood up into all of it and put a rocket into the lead tank, setting it afire and blocking the road. Across that day he knocked out three tanks single handed and broke up an infantry assault before he was badly wounded. He held his ground when everyone else had fallen back. That refusal to give up the position is the standard we bring to a case at SHAPE.
Why Service Members at SHAPE Bring Us In
We win court martial cases. Military defense is all we do, and service members fly us in from all over the world because of our trial record. The military justice system is not built to find the truth; it exists to preserve good order and discipline, and a command at NATO's headquarters has every reason to be seen dealing firmly with one of its own. A serious case is worked by your service's investigators, whether Army CID, the Air Force OSI, or NCIS, and for sexual assault and other covered offenses the decision to refer charges to a court martial no longer belongs to your command but goes to an independent Special Trial Counsel. The trial defense counsel your service details to you may be capable but carries a heavy caseload inside the same system, which is why those serious about winning bring in their own counsel.
UCMJ Charges We Defend at SHAPE and USAG Benelux
These reflect the cases we see most at SHAPE and USAG Benelux. If your allegation is different, we still defend it, because we handle every UCMJ charge.
Sexual Assault and Sex Offenses (UCMJ Article 120 / Article 134). These allegations route to an independent Special Trial Counsel now, and the command treats a report as established before the investigation is finished, all the more so at a headquarters where word moves fast through a small and tightly ranked community. These cases demand counsel who will run an independent investigation and contest the case rather than let the allegation stand in for proof, because a conviction means confinement, a federal record, and a place on a sex offender registry.
Domestic Violence and Assault (UCMJ Articles 128b and 128). Domestic violence under Article 128b is charged as aggressively as any offense in the UCMJ since the Office of Special Trial Counsel took these cases over. It covers a spouse, an intimate partner, or a family member, and it treats strangulation or suffocation as its own charge that the government can bring even with no visible injury. A qualifying conviction also triggers the federal Lautenberg firearms bar, which can end a military career because a service member has to be able to carry a weapon. We also defend assault under Article 128, where self defense is a recognized defense.
Fraud and Larceny (UCMJ Articles 124, 121, and 107). Living on the economy around Mons means drawing the overseas housing allowance, and a headquarters built on constant travel means a constant flow of vouchers, and both are where fraud cases at a place like SHAPE are born. A lease the government decides was inflated, a side arrangement with a Belgian landlord, a dependent or address it says was misreported, a travel claim it calls padded, and a routine entitlement becomes larceny stacked with a false official statement and fraud allegation. These cases are built from paperwork, but a disputed allowance or a questioned voucher is not theft, and a lease, an approval, or a travel claim can look one way to the government and very different once the rest of the record is on the table.
Drugs and Off Duty Conduct (UCMJ Articles 112a and 134). Drug cases often turn on the chain of custody and the government's burden to prove any use was knowing and wrongful. A service member is subject to the UCMJ off duty, so a night out in Mons or an incident off base comes back to the command. Belgium also sets a lower legal blood alcohol limit than most American states, and a serious off base matter can be taken up by the Belgian police and prosecuted in a Belgian court, on a separate track from your command, so get counsel involved before you talk to anyone.
A Career and a Reputation Worth Defending
We do not pretend that every service member who calls us from Belgium is innocent. What matters is how serious the case is, not your rank. If a matter is genuinely minor, the defense counsel your service provides can handle it, and we will tell you so honestly. But when the case is serious, everything is on the line at once: your career, your retirement, your good name, and your freedom. A court martial conviction is a federal criminal conviction, and the parameters that now govern sentencing place each offense in a confinement range, two and a half to ten years for sexual assault and ten to twenty for rape, binding the judge unless specific facts justify going lower, plus a punitive discharge and, on a covered sex offense, sex offender registration. That is why you fight.
If you are facing an investigation or court martial at SHAPE, Chièvres, or anywhere in the Benelux, reach out for a free defense strategy session. We will tell you exactly what you are facing and how we would defend it. The government is already building its case. The only question is whether anyone is building yours.
FAQ
Investigators want to interview me at SHAPE. Do I have to talk to them?
No. Whether it is Army CID, the Air Force OSI, or NCIS, you are not required to sit for the interview or answer their questions. Under Article 31b of the UCMJ you have the right to remain silent and to a lawyer, and you can invoke both at any point, including before the interview begins. They are collecting evidence, not giving you a chance to explain, and they can title you as a subject at a low threshold that follows you for years. Decline, ask for counsel, and call a defense lawyer before you give any statement.
I hold a clearance for my NATO billet and I'm under investigation. Can it cost me my access even if I beat the charge?
Yes, because your access and the court martial run on separate tracks with separate standards. A command or security manager who learns of a serious allegation can suspend your access before anything is proven, and revoking a clearance is a separate administrative decision that we do not handle. But that process runs on what the criminal investigation finds, so the most important thing you can do to protect your access is to fight the underlying allegation hard from the start, which is what we do.
Something happened off base near Mons. Could the Belgian authorities get involved too?
They can. Under the agreement that governs U.S. and NATO forces here, the Belgian authorities can claim jurisdiction over off base conduct, so a serious matter can be investigated by the Belgian police and prosecuted in a Belgian court on a separate track from the UCMJ case your command is pursuing. Investigations in the two systems may overlap, and what you say to one can affect the other, so do not give a statement to anyone until you have talked to a defense lawyer. The SOFA allocates primary jurisdiction and limits a second trial for the same offense; overlapping investigations do not mean that both countries may freely try the same charge.