Eglin AFB: The Air Force's Largest Proving Ground
On the Emerald Coast of the Florida Panhandle, Eglin Air Force Base sits on the largest reservation in the Air Force, the home of the 96th Test Wing, which tests and evaluates nearly every weapon the Air Force drops or fires. It is a joint installation: the Army's 7th Special Forces Group, the Green Berets, is based here, and the tri-service Explosive Ordnance Disposal school trains Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines on the range. The people stationed here work with weapons, ordnance, and test programs every day, and they live the good life of the Panhandle when they are off, with Airmen and families in Niceville, Valparaiso, and Crestview and the sugar-white sand of Destin and Fort Walton Beach a short drive away. A command running the testing and special operations missions that ride on Eglin will move hard against anyone who threatens them.
Military defense is all Bilecki Law Group does, and service members fly us in from around the world, to Okinawa, Germany, and Korea, because when a career is on the line they want the firm with the trial record, not the nearest office. For Eglin, that firm is practically in your backyard, a short flight up the Florida coast from our Tampa office.
The Green Beret Who Held the Camp
Eglin is home to the 7th Special Forces Group, and the Special Forces standard was set by Captain Roger H.C. Donlon at Nam Dong in 1964. When his Special Forces camp was overrun in a night assault, Donlon moved through the fire from position to position, dragging wounded men to cover, knocking out an enemy team at the gate, and directing the defense though he was hit again and again. He held the camp until dawn. He became the first Medal of Honor recipient of the Vietnam War and the first ever awarded to a Special Forces Soldier. He would not give up the camp or the men inside it. That refusal to give ground is the standard we bring to a case at Eglin.
Why Service Members at Eglin Bring Us In
We win court martial cases. Military defense is all we do, and service members 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 command running sensitive testing and special operations work will make an example of someone to prove it holds the line. A serious case is investigated by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, or by Army CID or NCIS for a Soldier or Sailor here, and for sexual assault and other covered offenses the decision to refer charges to a court martial no longer belongs to your commander but goes to an independent Special Trial Counsel. The free counsel detailed 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 Eglin Air Force Base
We take on the full range of court martial charges. Below are the ones that come up most often at Eglin Air Force Base.
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 tight community where word of an allegation travels fast and the command wants to look decisive. 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 can mean confinement and a federal record, with registration required for a covered sex offense under the applicable federal and state law.
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, the usual charge when a night out in Destin ends in a fight, where self defense is a recognized defense.
Larceny and Government Property (UCMJ Articles 121 and 108). A test base and a special operations group are issued an enormous amount of weapons, optics, sensitive equipment, and controlled material, and accountability is unforgiving. The government treats missing gear, an item that cannot be reconciled, or property that walked off as larceny under Article 121 or wrongful disposition of military property under Article 108, but a shortage on a hand receipt is not the same as theft, and the government still has to prove the state of mind required by the charged offense: intent for larceny or fraud, or negligence where Article 108 permits it, not just that something cannot be found.
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. How the sample was collected and handled and whether any use was knowing are where these cases are decided, and a positive urinalysis is evidence the government may use to argue knowing, wrongful use, not an automatic finding of guilt. We have beaten these on the collection itself, including a drug case at Eglin defeated on an unconstitutional urinalysis, with no charges, no nonjudicial punishment, and the member retained. Do not assume a positive test is the end of it.
A Career and a Reputation Worth Defending
We do not pretend that every service member who calls us from Eglin is innocent. What matters is how serious the case is, not your rank. If a matter is genuinely minor, the detailed 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 retirement, your good name, and your freedom. A court martial conviction is a federal criminal conviction, and where the sentencing parameters apply the confinement range is set by the offense, two and a half to ten years for sexual assault and ten to twenty for rape, with a departure requiring specific facts in writing, on top of a possible punitive discharge and, for 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 Eglin Air Force Base, 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.
Cases Connected to Eglin Air Force Base
These cases include trials, hearings, investigations, and administrative matters. A connection to this location does not necessarily mean that the trial occurred here.
- Case connected to this location: Bilecki Defeats Article 112a Drug Pop on Junior Sailor at Eglin AFB by Exposing Unconstitutional Mass Urinalysis Order; No Charges Preferred, No NJP, No Captain's Mast, No Administrative Separation, Sailor Retained on Active Duty
FAQ
OSI or CID wants to interview me at Eglin. Do I have to talk to them?
No. Whether it is the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Army CID, 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 it takes very little to be titled as a subject, a label that follows you for years. Decline, ask for counsel, and call a defense lawyer before you give any statement.
I had a positive urinalysis. Is the case already lost?
No. A positive test is a permissive inference, not proof, and these cases are won and lost on how the sample was collected, labeled, stored, and tested, and on whether the government can prove the use was knowing and wrongful. A break in the chain of custody or an unlawful collection can knock the test out entirely. We have done exactly that at Eglin, where a drug case was defeated on an unconstitutional urinalysis with no charges and the member retained. Get counsel before you make any admission to investigators.
I'm in a special operations or sensitive unit and I'm under investigation. Can it cost me my clearance even if I beat the charge?
It can, 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 process 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.