NAS Fallon: The Best of the Best, in a High Desert Full of Temptation
Show us a military assignment where gambling, legal brothels, and easy access to drugs all sit within driving distance, and we will show you an assignment where trouble with the UCMJ is never far away. Welcome to NAS Fallon, home of the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center and the school the world still knows as TOPGUN. The desert ranges around Fallon offer the open airspace the best strike fighter aviators in the Navy need to train, which is exactly why the best of the best come here.
For a civilian, the vice within reach of Fallon poses no real risk. For a service member, a single bad decision can end a career. That is the cruel arithmetic of the UCMJ: the same conduct that is legal for the people around you can put you in front of a court martial.
Why Sailors at NAS Fallon Fly Us In
A serious case at Fallon is investigated by NCIS and prosecuted through Region Legal Service Office Southwest. For sexual assault, domestic violence, and other covered offenses, the charging decision no longer belongs to your command, it belongs to an independent Special Trial Counsel in the Navy's Office of Special Trial Counsel. For everything else, the command and its legal office still run the case. As a nation we cannot afford to lose the best of the best, or the people who support them, to a UCMJ charge that should never have been brought, but the system does not see it that way.
Tim Bilecki spent years inside the military justice system as a JAG defense counsel and Senior Defense Counsel before going civilian, and he will tell you plainly that the game is rigged against the JAG defense. He is licensed before all military courts and the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and his trial craft has been recognized in a national defense lawyers' guide. When prosecutors at Fallon see that you have flown in experienced counsel from out of state, the easy win they were counting on is gone.
They Could Not Break Him
Fallon turns out the Navy's best fighter pilots, and one of them showed the world what a fighter pilot is made of long after the flying was over. Commander James Stockdale was shot down over Vietnam and became the senior naval officer in the prison camps of Hanoi. For years he organized the resistance, absorbed the worst of the torture to shield the men under him, and at one point deliberately wounded himself rather than be paraded as enemy propaganda. His captors finally eased off because they could not break him. He received the Medal of Honor for it. Bring that refusal to break into your own case, and the prosecution will not get the easy win it expected.
Take the Fight to the Heart of the Case
The military justice system does not exist to pursue justice, and that is the first thing to understand before you square off against it. Investigators combing your barracks room are not looking for the truth, they are looking for evidence of your guilt, and they will step over whatever points the other way. The system only works if it can destroy a service member in a public fashion, because that is what scares everyone else into compliance.
Your one real chance at the best possible outcome is to fight back. Do not take the first lousy deal without talking to experienced counsel, because prosecutors love an easy win and will press their advantage the moment they smell one. Signal that you intend to fight, and the calculation changes. We run our own investigation, contest the evidence, and show up to the Article 32 hearing ready to take the case apart rather than watch it go by.
UCMJ Charges We Defend at NAS Fallon
These are the allegations we see most at NAS Fallon. The full range of UCMJ charges is within what we defend, listed here or not.
Sexual Assault and Sex Offenses (UCMJ Article 120 / Article 134). Article 134 reaches conduct like patronizing a prostitute, a real temptation near Fallon, but the far greater risk to a career today is the military's SAPR campaign. What began as a noble effort to root out sexual misconduct has become a setting where commands, NCIS, and the Office of Special Trial Counsel pursue rumors and allegations as if they were established fact. They do not need evidence and they will not wait for a trial, because the goal is to show leadership and elected officials that they are taking the issue seriously. Service members have also learned to weaponize the system, since a single false allegation against a former partner can end a career. If you are facing these charges, your guilt has been assumed, and a fight you did not want is coming.
Fraud and Larceny (UCMJ Article 121). BAH fraud, OHA fraud, larceny, wrongful appropriation, extortion, and conspiracy to defraud the government all fall within what we handle. BAH fraud is common, and it is often just a young service member who made a mistake trying to provide for a family. Whatever investigators tell you, that is not automatically the end of a career, and there is a path to the best possible outcome.
Domestic Violence and Assault (UCMJ Articles 128b and 128). A large and growing part of our work is domestic violence under Article 128b, prosecuted now by an independent Special Trial Counsel with the weight of a felony. It reaches a spouse, an intimate partner, or a family member, and singles out strangulation and suffocation as their own serious charge whether or not anything is visible. The hidden cost is the Lautenberg Amendment: a qualifying conviction bars you from a firearm or ammunition, which can end a Sailor's career. Plain Article 128 assault is part of the work too. We defend murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, assault, and self defense cases. The UCMJ can levy stiff penalties when aggression gets the better of someone, and when a civilian is hurt in a fight you can be sure the service member will face the harshest charges, even when they were defending themselves or someone else.
Drug Offenses (UCMJ Article 112a). We defend possession, distribution, importation, manufacturing, trafficking, and positive urinalysis cases. The widening gap between state drug laws and the UCMJ is something the military will eventually have to reconcile, but in the meantime a positive test can threaten the career of a service member this country needs. We have successfully defended these cases, including ones that began with a positive result.
Military Specific Offenses (UCMJ Articles 77 to 134). Fraternization, unauthorized absence, disobeying a lawful order, and conduct unbecoming get piled on to raise the maximum punishment and the pressure to take an early deal. Sometimes you fight these charges purely on principle.
How to Beat a Court Martial out of NAS Fallon
If you are facing an investigation or court martial at NAS Fallon, reach out. We fly anywhere in the world, including Japan, Korea, Europe, and the Middle East, and Fallon is a routine trip. We will give you a free defense strategy session and tell you exactly what you are facing. We do not take every case, and for a genuinely minor matter your free detailed defense counsel can handle, we will tell you so rather than take your money. But when the case is serious, your career, your retirement, your good name, and your freedom are all on the line, because a conviction is a federal criminal conviction. Where the sentencing parameters apply, it can carry confinement a judge has little discretion to avoid, a punitive discharge, and on a sex offense registration, at any rank. As long as you are willing to fight, so are we. Take the fight to the heart of the military justice system and win. The court’s jurisdiction and the convicted offense determine which sentencing rules apply; some offenses use separate sentencing criteria rather than these ranges.
FAQ
Prostitution and gambling are legal in parts of Nevada. Can the Navy still charge me?
Yes. State law does not control the UCMJ. Gambling itself is generally not a UCMJ offense, but patronizing a prostitute is charged under Article 134 regardless of whether the brothel is licensed under Nevada law, and drug use that is legal for civilians remains an Article 112a offense for you. The fact that the conduct was lawful for the people around you offers no protection. What can be challenged is how the government proves the charge, and that is where a defense is built.
I'm at Fallon on a training detachment and NCIS wants to talk. Do I have to talk to them?
No, not without counsel. Under Article 31b of the UCMJ you can remain silent and ask for a lawyer, and you should; an NCIS interview is evidence collection, and the first contact usually shapes the case. Being here TDY for training does not change that, and it adds a wrinkle: witnesses and your home command are scattered across the fleet, so the record made at Fallon can follow you home. For covered offenses like sexual assault, an independent Special Trial Counsel, not your command, decides whether to refer charges to a court martial. Decline, ask for counsel, and call a lawyer before you say anything.
I'm an aviator here for advanced training at NAWDC. What does an investigation do to my flight status and my wings?
It runs separately from the court martial and can outlast your detachment. For a designated aviator or NFO, an allegation can convene a Field Naval Aviator Evaluation Board (FNAEB) to judge your fitness for aviation service, and because you are here TDY, that board can follow you back to your home command. Its recommendations run from sending you back to the cockpit to ending your flying career outright, and a DUI or misconduct allegation can put you in front of one even if the criminal charge is dropped. For aviators sent to Fallon as some of the best in the fleet, an FNAEB can take the wings the court martial would have left you, which is why both have to be fought from the start.