Offutt Air Force Base: The Home of Strategic Command
Just south of Omaha, Offutt Air Force Base is the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command, the nerve center of the nation's nuclear command and control, with the 55th Wing and its RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft, the largest wing in Air Combat Command, and the 557th Weather Wing providing global environmental analysis and forecasting. It is a base of intelligence professionals, reconnaissance crews, and the staff that runs the strategic deterrent, more than a fighter line. Families settle in Bellevue, Papillion, La Vista, and Gretna in eastern Nebraska, with Omaha to the north. A command that holds the nuclear mission and the deepest secrets enforces its standards without slack, and an allegation here can put the whole career at risk long before any verdict.
Military defense is all Bilecki Law Group does, and Airmen fly us in from our office in Tampa because a contested court martial is decided by trial experience, and we bring it wherever the case is.
The Commander Who Led His Group Into the Fire
The strategic-deterrence heritage Offutt carries was set by Lieutenant Colonel Addison E. Baker, who led his bomb group into the low-level Ploesti raid on August 1, 1943. With his own aircraft hit and burning before the target, Baker held the lead and pressed his group through the flak and fire onto the refineries rather than pull up or turn away, then left the formation after bombing and tried to gain altitude so his crew could escape before the aircraft went down. He led from the front into the worst of it. That refusal to flinch from the mission is the standard we bring to a case at Offutt.
Why Airmen at Offutt Bring Us In
We win court martial cases. Military defense is all we do, and Airmen fly us in from all over the country 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 strategic command will make an example of an Airman to protect its mission. A serious case is investigated by the Office of Special Investigations, 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 Area Defense Counsel may be capable but carries a heavy caseload inside the same system, which is why Airmen serious about winning bring in their own counsel.
UCMJ Charges We Defend at Offutt Air Force Base
We defend every kind of military charge. The ones below are simply the most common at Offutt.
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 in a community where word of an allegation travels fast. A conviction can mean confinement and a federal record, with registration required for a covered sex offense under the applicable federal and state law. These cases demand counsel who will run an independent investigation and contest the case rather than let the allegation stand in for proof.
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 an Air Force career because an Airman has to be able to carry a weapon. We also defend assault under Article 128, the usual charge when a night out in Omaha ends in a fight, where self defense is a recognized defense.
False Official Statements and Fraud (UCMJ Articles 107 and 124). In a strategic command a security or administrative inquiry can turn adversarial fast, and a statement that does not match the record becomes a false official statement under Article 107, sometimes stacked with fraud against the United States under Article 124. The government still has to prove a knowing falsity and an intent to deceive, not just an inconsistency or an honest mistake, and that gap is where these cases are won.
Drugs (UCMJ Article 112a). A positive urinalysis is one of the fastest ways a career comes apart, because the flag can land before the case is ever resolved. But a positive test is evidence the government may use to argue knowing, wrongful use, not an automatic finding of guilt, so the collection, the chain of custody, the lab work, and whether any use was knowing and wrongful all remain the government's to prove.
A Career and a Reputation Worth Defending
We do not pretend that every Airman who calls us from Offutt is innocent. What matters is how serious the case is, not your rank. If a matter is genuinely minor, the Area Defense Counsel 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 good name, and your freedom. A court martial conviction is a federal criminal conviction, and the applicable sentencing parameters tie a confinement range to the offense, two and a half to ten years for sexual assault and ten to twenty for rape, that a judge can depart from only by stating specific facts in writing, on top of any required or adjudged punitive discharge and, on a covered sex offense, sex offender registration. That is why you fight. The court’s jurisdiction and the convicted offense determine which sentencing rules apply; some offenses use separate sentencing criteria rather than these ranges.
If you are facing an investigation or court martial at Offutt Air Force Base, reach out for a free, confidential 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
OSI wants to interview me at Offutt. Do I have to talk to them?
No. Under Article 31b of the UCMJ you have the right to remain silent and to a lawyer, and you can invoke both before the interview begins. OSI is gathering evidence, not offering a chance to explain, and at a strategic command a statement can drive the criminal case and your standing in a small senior community all at once. Decline, ask for the Area Defense Counsel or your own lawyer, and say nothing until you have one.
My clearance or nuclear-mission access was suspended over an investigation. Can you get it back?
We defend the criminal allegation that is driving the suspension, because winning or narrowing that case is the strongest leverage there is on what the security office or the reliability program decides. We do not litigate the clearance adjudication itself. Those actions are administrative, run on a far lower standard than a conviction, and are not proof of guilt, so the priority is to beat the charge underneath them.
I'm under an Article 120 investigation. Will I have to register as a sex offender if I'm convicted?
A court martial conviction for a covered Article 120 offense triggers registration duties under the applicable federal and state law, with requirements and duration determined by the covered conviction and jurisdiction. The entire defense is aimed at defeating the charge or reducing it to an offense that carries no registration, and the investigation and the charging decision are where these cases are most often turned. Get your own counsel involved before you ever sit down with OSI.