Fort Drum: The 10th Mountain Division in the North Country
In the far north of New York, near the Canadian border, Fort Drum is the home of the 10th Mountain Division, the light-infantry division that has been among the most deployed in the Army since 9/11. Tens of thousands of Soldiers are stationed here in the North Country, thirty-some miles from the Canadian border and the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, with Watertown the small city outside the gate and Syracuse an hour and a half south. It is one of the snowiest places in America, buried under a hundred and fifty inches of lake-effect snow off Lake Ontario most winters, and the isolation is real. A division that deploys as hard as this one will make an example of a Soldier to keep its readiness sharp.
Military defense is all Bilecki Law Group does, and Soldiers fly us in from our office in Tampa, from the most remote posts in the Army to the busiest, because what wins a contested court martial is trial experience, and we bring it wherever the case is.
The Soldier Who Would Not Leave His Man
The 10th Mountain Division's standard was set on a ridge in Afghanistan by Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti. On June 21, 2006, in Nuristan, his patrol was ambushed by a much larger force, and one of his Soldiers lay badly wounded in the open, cut off by heavy fire. Monti went after him. Twice he started across the exposed ground and was driven back, and on the third attempt he was killed, still trying to reach his man. He would not leave a wounded Soldier where he fell, and he died proving it. That refusal to leave one of his own is the standard we bring to a case at Drum.
Why Soldiers at Drum Bring Us In
We win court martial cases. Military defense is all we do, and Soldiers 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 hard-deploying division will make an example of a Soldier to keep the rest in line. A serious case is investigated by Army CID, 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. Your Trial Defense Service counsel may be capable but carries a heavy caseload inside the same system, which is why Soldiers serious about winning bring in their own counsel.
UCMJ Charges We Defend at Fort Drum
We defend the full range of UCMJ charges. The ones below are the most common at Fort Drum, not the boundary of what we will fight.
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 unit 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 an Army career because a Soldier has to be able to carry a weapon. We also defend assault under Article 128, the usual charge when a night out in Watertown ends in a fight, where self defense is a recognized defense.
Larceny and Government Property (UCMJ Articles 121 and 108). A light-infantry division that deploys constantly is issued and signs for an enormous amount of weapons, optics, night vision, and field gear, much of it moving through deployments and turn-ins, 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. Marijuana is one worth flagging: it is legal to buy in New York, but it is still a federal controlled substance and a court martial offense under Article 112a, and being legal off post does not make it lawful for a Soldier. A positive urinalysis still comes back to the command, 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, and whether any use was knowing all remain the government's to prove.
A Career and a Reputation Worth Defending
We do not pretend that every Soldier who calls us from Drum is innocent. What matters is how serious the case is, not your rank. If a matter is genuinely minor, your Trial Defense Service 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 the applicable military sentencing parameters set a confinement range the judge has to work within, two and a half to ten years for sexual assault and ten to twenty for rape, with any departure requiring specific facts in writing, plus 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 Fort Drum, 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 Fort Drum
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 Wins Pre-Trial Withdrawal and Dismissal of Article 120 OSTC GCM at Fort Drum After Patrick Eller Surfaces the Government's Missing Texts and Two M.R.E. 412 Wins
- Case connected to this location: Bilecki Closes Court Martial Investigation on Army SFC Deployed to Jordan with No Preferral, No NJP, No GOMOR
FAQ
Army CID wants to interview me at Drum. Do I have to talk to them?
No. You are not required to sit for a CID 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. CID is 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'm under an Article 120 investigation at Drum. Can it really be beaten, and will I have to register as a sex offender?
Yes, it can be fought. 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, so the fight is to defeat the charge outright or reduce it to something that carries no registration. We have done that at Drum, where an Article 120 general court martial was withdrawn after we ran down the missing text messages and won the M.R.E. 412 fight, with no sex offender registration. The investigation is where these cases are most often turned, so get your own counsel involved before you ever sit down with CID.
A deployment property or larceny investigation has come back on me. How serious is that?
It can be serious, because the government reads missing or unreconciled equipment as theft, but a shortage is not the same as intent to steal, and a deployment is exactly the chaotic environment where gear legitimately goes unaccounted for. We have shut these down before they ever became charges, including a deployment-related larceny investigation at Drum that was closed with no charges preferred. Do not give a statement trying to explain the paperwork; get counsel and let the defense build the record.