(1LT, U.S. Army Reserve – Fort Belvoir)

Accusation: Sexual Harassment

Our client was fresh out of the BOLC and tasked to be a detachment commander for a small military intelligence formation deploying to the Middle East. During the mobilization process, one of the Soldiers assigned to his detachment made it clear that she did not want to deploy.

Our client did his best to help her in every way he could. She provided conflicting stories about her medical issues among other things. Ultimately, she was told to mobilize with the detachment to Fort Bliss prior to the deployment.

During this next phase of pre-deployment prep, she made it very clear to her fellow female Soldiers that she would do anything she could to ruin our client’s life. She then began a campaign to do just that. First she filed a sexual harassment claim that was investigated and unsubstantiated. The claim was about a comment that was not substantiated stemming from one of the females flushing tampons down the toilet.

Then, while coming back from a medical appointment, the van she was riding in accidentally ran into another vehicle. The damage was negligible, and everyone in the van reported no injuries. Despite that, this female Soldier was furiously texting one of her friends stating that she was in a wreck, she hit her head and that the driver would not take her to the TMC. Eventually she was treated, and convinced her doctors to make her non-deployable.

However, she was not done. She knew she lied about the extent of her injury which led to her avoiding the deployment. So she set out to continue her campaign to ruin our client’s life and deflect anything away from her by filing yet another complaint. She even convinced another Soldier to lie for her.

The sad part of this case was the fact that the investigating officer failed to properly investigate this case. He managed to lose several favorable statements made by females concerning our client and his activities, conversations and general demeanor. He failed to follow up natural leads.

This case was further compounded by the fact that in spite of our pointing out glaring inconsistencies in our client’s case, he still received an officially filed GOMOR, a referred OER and an administrative separation notification wherein they sought an other than honorable characterization of discharge.

We called six key witnesses to detail exactly what happened on the mobilizations. All six key witnesses were kept out of the investigation one way or another….but they were not kept out of the board room.

All six witnesses managed to refute every complaint made against our client. They further attested to his great character and great service on deployment and at his reserve unit.

The board found no basis to separate and retained our client.

Result: No Basis to Separate – Retained!