How Military Justice Screws People Over | Bethany McDonough | Ep. 392

the solution is Private Internet Access PIA. It's super easy to use and the app protects all your devices. It hides your IP addresses, and it creates an encrypted tunnel from your internet connection, so no one can snoop on your data. And unlike a lot of the services out there, PIA is completely transparent. They have a proven no logs policy which means they never record or store your data.

But really, the thing that I love about PIA the most is, like I watch The Office here in the US, it just pop over to like the UK or the Canadian servers and boom, right, you have The Office right on Netflix. Also, another show that just came out, Small Villagers, came out Netflix in the UK, Canada, France, all over Europe, so you can just pop over to one of their

servers and watch that no sweat. You can actually change your location to ninety one countries and unlock new content whatever you want to watch, so you can check that out. It's pretty cool and you can parect your entire family with one subscription. So if you want to protect your digital life and get eighty three percent off plus four months free at the Pia vpn dot com Slash team House and sign up today. They have a thirty back thirty day money back guarantee, so there's no risk to you.

That's Pia VPN Slash Team House for eighty three percent off plus four months free. That's actually just two dollars and three cents a month, so it's totally worth it. If you're in the game for a VPN right and you don't want them, like you know, logs and stuff like that and worried about that, go to PIA vpn of the best. It's Pia vpn dot com Slash Teamhouse. Get eighty three percent off plus four months free.

you recover. Every ghost Bed mattress is made with premium materials, proven cooling technology, and their exclusive pro Core layer, a targeted support system that reinforces the center of the mattress where your body is the heaviest. It helps to keep your spine aligned and your back supported so you wake up ready to take on what's next. And ghost Bed's cooling materials don't just keep you from overheating, they help

regulate your temperature year round. Each mattress comes with one hundred and one night sleep trial and a twenty to twenty five year warranty, plus fat free shipping. Most orders arrive in two to five days, so better rest is just around the corner right now. During ghost Beds Holiday Sale.

You can get twenty five percent off site wide for a limited time. Just go to ghostbed dot com slash house and use the promo code house at checkout. That's ghostbed dot com slash house promo code house. Upgrade your sleep with ghost bed, the makers of the coolest beds in the world. Some exclusions apply. See site for details and thank you ghost bed for sponsoring the show. Please check out the link down the description and support our sponsor. All Right, So this is episode I think three and

ninety two of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with our guest tonight, Bethany McDonough. Bethany is a former Army officer and just to be completely candid and upfront with the audience, has a pretty terrible story tonight. So I've urged viewer discretion if you have kids running around as you're listening to this, but otherwise we're going to

get into it. You know, mostly this podcast is sort of a celebration of military service almost, but there are times where we have to have some difficult conversations about things not working the way they're supposed to, and uh, this is going to be one of them. So Bethany, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast tonight and doing this. I know it's it's not an easy thing to stand up and say the things that you need to say.

to other people. It is important for you know, other people that this that this happens to to know, I mean number one, that they're not alone and quite frankly, for people to make decisions about whether or not they're wanting to serve as a yep, that this can happen. Yeah.

other students there, and I was like, oh, these are other other college students that are also like serving in the military or figuring it out. And like when you're when you're like at that age, that's a huge thing to like have in common with other people. So I, you know, I wound up commissioning in O seven and then I, you know, I've served in the National Guard

and the reserves my entire career. I was never straight active duty, and I mean that was you know, looking back on it, I might have done it differently, but at the time, like I always planned on being in the reserves and National Guard. That was what was That was what I chose to do. And uh so, I you know, I was a military intelligence officer. I say it was because I'm I'm now a veteran as of about two months three months, right, and thank you. I yeah,

I've served in several different National Guard states. You know, I moved all over the country. I spent a signific at a time at Fort Wood, Chuka and let me see, I I you know, I went to Afghanistan in two thousand and seven, two thousand and seven, two thousand and nine, twenty ten. And let me see, eventually I wound up in the Northern Virginia area for my civilian job and then wound up being assigned on active duty for about five years, you know, during during which time a lot

of this kind of went on. So my active duty time most recently was in a like a budgeting capacity, So I have a finance background and then as a military intelligence officer at the same time, it's kind of a very niche like thing. Not a lot of not a lot of people like finance to begin with, especially in the army. So for me, it was just a really good fit. And so I was serving on active duty when you know, some of these other events.

worked at the Military Intelligence Readiness Command on Fort bel War and I was a program manager, So I managed a program called Foundry and uh it is a military intelligence funds for military intelligence soldiers. And I just I administered the program. So I would recommend to commanders how to utilize those funds and how to disperse them to units and then account for them correctly and all of those things. So yeah, I did that for about five years.

I should be safe around this person. And to boot that person isn't going to They're not going to be someone who commits crimes, lives in their parents' basement, does drugs or you know, alcohol excessively. They this should this should be the safest type of person that I should be able to be around. And so that's why I I knew this person for about ten days give or take, and why I felt comfortable going to his house even though I didn't know him that well, because you should

be safe around someone like that. At least that was my assessment at that time. Let me see, I I was also like sort of fighting my own instincts. So I had sort of like a creepy vibe when I was, you know, interacting with this person, where like any woman

who who hears this will understand what I'm saying. Whereas you get this vibe that like, Okay, this person might not be as safe as as I. It's sort of like the hair stands up on the back of your neck every so often and but again, but then I'm like the other part of me was like, yeah, but he has all these things to lose. He's security planings, he's a No. Five on ACTI duty at the pen again, I, you know, I don't need to I don't need to be concerned. So I sort of brushed off those, if

off some of those indicators.

huge indicators. One was that he stored weapons in his bedroom, weapons and ammunition in his bedroom. And I know this because he showed them to me, not just not just one a case with several in them, like and uh, let me see, ah, not in m four. What's the other what what's what's like, what's the the civilian weapon that's like damp Yes, an air fifteen, a shotgun, a handgun in his closet, and like, I, you know, I

I don't own any weapons. I don't utilize weapons outside of what I've needed to do in the military for training. But I know that a lot of a lot of service members do have that as a hobby, so I

brush it off. I would say, like, another really strange indicator was there was a lock on his So there was a point at which I was attempting to let this person's dog out in the middle of the night because it was whining, and I realized after like not being able to do that, that there was a lock on the back door where you had to have a key to open the back door, which was making me and so to me, I was like, okay, well, I'm

I might be locked in the house. I didn't find that out until you know, some other I didn't find out that out in time enough where I would have been able to react to that red flag, But yeah, that was that was that was it was. That was definitely part of the creepy guye.

kitchen kitchen island. This isn't I mean, I had I again that this was This was also after the fact. So this led me to all of these things. I reported within twenty four hours to a police station that I've been sexually assaulted, and I named this person, and I got, you know, several restraining orders like right away, and I did within the week. I I you know, I did a full interview with the molass Manasa's police department about what all of the events that had occurred.

And I'm trying to avoid talking about some of the specifics because they're they're kind of painful and also not not as relevant to kind of the broader picture of.

next step for you after making that police report? And then you know you you informed the military like shortly thereafter.

of my mind, I didn't know if this person was still in active duty anymore. This person told me, oh, I'm retired, But what you know, what does that mean? Like this that doesn't just because you say you retire doesn't mean you're not on active duty, right Like, so I, in my mind, I reported somebody that I barely knew and I so I didn't know. So while I was sitting in the police station, uh they I heard one

of the officers say something like that. So when I first went there, they were like they were doing this, you know, flirring around like I didn't know what they were doing. I was sitting there for like two hours waiting for them to say something or do something, and they just said, okay, wait here and and went off to do something. And like what I what I learned kind of later on was that they were probably checking this person's background and also learning that he had a

whole criminal criminal record. That's probably what.

told the military, Holy crap. And I was like, oh, damn it, because I in my mind I was like, well, the right thing to do is to report it, but you know, maybe he's not an active duty and I don't want my boss to know, you know, I don't want I don't want my I the command where I was at was a one star general, like that was going to be the person that was, you know, the who has to know about the assault, That was going to be the person that was going to have to

like hear about it. And so knowing that, I was like, oh my god, like no, I So I just sort of pulled the band aid off and did it reporting. And then you know, within the week I was like, you know, the start got notified and like I so I did like a Saint exam and like again me, I was kind of like just kind of an autopilot the whole time. Like within the first twenty four hours the well to get saine exam, I just called the sharp Port Bulwar number and somebody picked up the phone.

That was the criteria of how I got to get a sane exam. And then once I was at once I was getting the sane exam, the nurse was like, well,

do you want me to call the police, and I in my mind, I was like, what what you know? I didn't. I was like, I didn't. I was making decisions on autopilot.

what kind of a report do you want? To do. So. Service members probably recognize that you can do a restricted report, which basically means, well, the report exists in a database somewhere and you can get like I don't know, access to counseling or something like that, and an unrestricted means

that it's going to be full uninvestigated. So the stark was like, well, okay, now you told me, and now you have to Now you you told the military, so like I didn't realize that at the time, but she was kind of telling me, you already reported, so now you were doing one or the other. You have to pick. And I hadn't even thought about that. So I said, we'll find out if the guy's on active duty. Then if he's if he's still on active duty, I'll do

an unrestricted report. So within the week she finds out he's, you know, still on active duty, and I'm sitting down with a one star general telling him that I got assaulted. Really, that commander was great, Brigadier General Tzinski. I don't know where he is and what he's doing in life, but he's fantastic. He was probably the best him. And then like the HHD commander at the time, they were great.

But again like the reserves. Like the reserves in the National Guard, one really big difference is they don't have sexual assaults getting reported. There's a really limited amount that the reserves actually has to do with it. Basically, the majority of what they do is administer the SHARP program because they don't have court martials, so there's there's not really going to be like the charging and all that stuff. So it's easier for them to it's easier for the

National Guard Reserves to be supportive. I don't know, so my experience with that, you know, that commander at the Mert commander was fantastic.

have it. So I had one that was enforceable for I think a few months, six weeks something like that for the town, and then the military protective order went until until the charges got dropped. Yeah, so let's see during this time that I was reporting like nothing was happening. So I, you know, those things happened, like I got the protective orders and that stuff right away, but I was still just like I was waiting around. I was waiting for the Virginia Manassa's police department to say what

they're going to do. I was waiting. You know, supposedly it's a joint investigation. That does not mean anything. That means that that means that the military is sitting on their heels waiting for the civilians to decide what they were going to do. So I had found out at that point that I had reported this person ninety days prior before he was about to retire. So the military

also they assign you a lawyer. That's one really good thing that has come out in like I think twenty nineteen and on, is there's a special Victims Council basically a lawyer for for the victim that is something that's a positive change in the SHARP program. So you know, interacting with this lawyer who's you know, all the way Fort Bragg. He he was also really great and I think he's still out there. He's still an SVC somewhere. He he kept following back up with the Military District

of Washington, saying, what are you going to do with this case? What's going on with this case? And I eventually like, because it was getting to the point where are you just gonna let him walk out the door

and retire? Like and I was also like worried because what the what this person that I had reported, this officer that I reported this five What he had told me was that he had a job lined up as a civilian contractor on Fort Belvoir at the what's the what what's set schoolhouse called Force Force Management, the School of Force Management on Fort Belboar. He he had a job lined up there, and that was a mile away

from where I worked. So like, if you know, you know, like the thing you know, I kind of told you some of like the creepy vibe factors, and I was just like, oh my gosh, Like he's going to work right down the road for me like, if they let him go and they do nothing, I have a problem. I have an immediate problem because so I you know, I kept asking and asking like what are you going

to do? What are the circumstances under which you are going to delay this person's retirement pending the outcome of the investigation, And what they were doing instead of instead of that was like dragging me into the Military District Washington, like Fort McNair. That's where there their legal office is, and they were basically having me go in for interviews with them under really strange circumstances, like basically to accommodate

the fact that this person was about to retire. So like I think I drove there while my hand was was not broken, but I had surgery on it. Uh I the lawyer wasn't able to be there because he's assigned for brag like all this stuff, where like why don't you just delay? I kept asking like why are

you how? How are you how? And when are you going to just delay the person's retirement pending the outcome of the investigation, And they kept saying that they needed me to come in and basically do these additional interviews to quote unquote state whether they had problem, because they had to decide whether they had probable cause, which led me to ultimately get a civilian lawyer because I was just like, why can't they why can't they answer basic questions?

And like, I mean, you've served in the midll, like, you know, if you're not getting an answer, it's because they don't like the one that they would give you.

soldier in an aar and he says I saw this, this and that, and the community doesn't like that, they will go back to him a second time, a third time, and it's like, are you getting the message? Are you getting the message here? Buddy? This isn't what you're supposed to be telling us. The same. Yeah, the inspector general, I'm sorry about this little rant, I'm on, but the inspector general plays the same games in the military that they will wait two years. They have two years to

do the investigation. They will wait one week before that expiration date and then contact the witnesses after two years. You guys know how the military works. Half of these people more out of the military. They've been moved to other bases. There's no way they're going to respond. That's it's just another tactic that they used to not have to address things that they really should.

and reason for asking me all these questions. And these questions were like, oh, what did you have for what did you have to drink at dinner? Oh you had wine? What type of wine did you have? Or like did you ever willingly touch specific parts of his body? It was it was just really gross. Where I had already given a two and a half hour interview in a police station, they already had it.

military lawyer cannot. For instance, challenge a case outcome because the person that decided the case is Colonel David Bolink for instance. Let me see, so, so you.

a whole bunch of delay delay, delay, and uh, some people switched out, you know, more delaying, and by this time I had the military lawyer, or excuse me, the civilian lawyer, and there was a preliminary hearing that took place, you know, probably eight months something like that after I report, after I had reported, and the so I wasn't present, the civilian lawyer was present on my behalf, and you know what they what I heard as being the outcome

was the office the preliminary hearing officer was inexperienced. He admitted this during during the hearing, he he asked he did something very non standard, which is he basically asked the prosecutor and then the defense attorney to outline like, okay, well, what how do you think that there is or is

not probable cause? So the defense attorney stated he did this long like to a three page document seeing why there is no probable cause, which was basically a whole bunch of rape myths, stringing stringing, rape myth after rape myth together to basically.

to like just any anything anything that they could. There was like some some texts that they tried to say that I was I was mad at the guy because he didn't want to go out with me again or something like and this it was just it was just really like it was really bizarre. It was like any way that they could just kind of twist the situation. They were doing that to make it look like I was lying or probably lying or could be lying, or you know. And then the comparatively the prosecutor was like, oh,

she reported this, this happened, this happened, this happened. This is what the law says. Therefore there probable cause. So I mean, and then I started to look at the statistics of probable cause hearings, and I could tell like the outcome of like uh, probable cause versus no probable cause and it gets sent to court martial or not. Like they were not adding up in this circumstance. The whole like it was a sham hearing is my takeaway. It was it was just kind of a sham hearing.

So and then we weren't allowed to see the report. So the preliminary hearing officer develops a report about what he about why he thinks there is there isn't probable cause, Well they don't the military doesn't provide those. So he has a copy. The person I reported has a copy, his lawyer has a copy, but I don't have a copy of this day, and so like basically I was just sort of told and then I didn't even know that it and so I kept I asked the attorney's

like who decided this? Who made the decision? They come back and they state it's Colonel Bowling, And I didn't know who it was at that point that was going to decide because the Military Distard Washington has a really weird like it's supposed to be an O six or higher, which was usually brigade commander who is the disposition authority, but not the general Court martial convenient authority, Like the Military District Washington has a really weird setup of who

gets to decide. So I didn't really understand that at the time.

have this authority? How was he qualified to make a decision like that.

he was allowed to decide the whole case. And that's what So I found this. I found the dick Pick six article and this is this is the first time I came upon it at like probably within you know, twelve twenty four hours after the after I'd been notified the charges were dismissed, and I was like, oh, well no, and I was like immediately I was incensed, but I didn't really I didn't understand you see him JA very well at the time. So I kind of sent it to my lawyers and I was like, this, jack wagon,

I can't believe this. And they didn't look at the article until much later when I brought it up again, and then they looked at it again and they were like, oh, hell no, this is this isn't you know? It's not legal.

And to your question of why was he in the mix at all, well, most so, I've obviously since since this has all happened, I now know way more about the military justice system that I would ever care to hope for, uh hope to and uh they the military just Washington has a withholding policy, and I've since learned so I'm again I'm the reserves, like, we don't have court martials. This isn't something that I had ever come across. A general court martial convening authority withholding policy such that

every senior enlisted and every officer. The disposition of those cases is the g C MCA, not the O six. So to your point, yeah, I don't. I think it's completely inappropriate that he was in the in the mix at all.

shore up, I didn't put in there. But there were there were definitely more people involved than were mentioned in there. There was additional crimes that were committed that are not mentioned in there. It's a it's a nasty story.

remember that, because they will make you feel crazy. They will make you feel like you're the one that's crazy.

that that came to me in the dark. And I really was like, I didn't know then there really there really wasn't anything else I could do with with that information at the time. Yeah, but we'll get to you know, this this journey that you took.

And he hemmed in hot and eventually after me badgering him and after me emailing Major General Peppin and the army. What's that?

And I finally I got my open door meeting, and I let's see, it didn't take place because, like COVID was still a big thing at that time, So it didn't take place until January of twenty twenty three, at which time, my excuse me. The person I reported, the lieutenant colonel I had reported he had been retired by

Colonel Bowling at that time by that time. And so I attended this meeting with myself my civilian attorney, and you know, Colonel Bowling was there, and then to two members of like the the jag staff, not one of one of them was the prosecutor, and then one of them was like the deputy the deputy jag I'm his name I'm blanking out his name right now. But you know, I didn't have any particular concerns with those people personally except that they were enforcing or they were they were

allowing this to happen. So during this meeting, I, you know, with my attorney president, I basically asked questions. I I asked questions of like, you know, there was like a an MPO protective order that they basically slow rolled and then eventually denied. So I requested, like a change to a protective order. They deny it because nothing had happened

therefore it was unnecessary. And I, you know, by this point, I'd looked up all the regulations and I knew the regulations then, like, I didn't believe that the guy was ever flagged appropriately. I believed that because because because ninety days went on and they were basically like not doing anything, and he was on terminal leave this entire time. So for them to have flagged him, I think they would

have had to take him off termal leave. So I didn't, you know, I thought that maybe he wasn't flagged and the MPO and then and then we got to the Dick Pick six article, which I had a copy printed out in my hands, and I basically handed it to the prosecutor, to the to the deputy and and I, you know, we said, like, here's here's the last thing

that we have questions about. You know, this, this article, according to what I can read in the manual for court martial, indicates that you shouldn't be you should not be anywhere near any sexual assault case because of implied bias like it. I mean, the manual for court martial is pretty clear that he, you know, he couldn't be on a on a jury, so a panel member, he couldn't be a part of that. So how can he decide the whole thing? How can he decide the whole case?

And they ham did had said, oh, no, he's not bias, blah blah blah, and Colonel Bowling specifically, he like got up, stopped around the room and said that no, he was not, in fact biased. And I think I asked at one point, well, sir, like, how how did this article come to exist? Like how

did this even come? You know, I was just kind of waiting to see what he'd say, and he just he looked at me and he said, well, I don't think I owe you an explanation, and I was just like, oh, wow, okay, that's that's interesting. So you feel entitled.

So there were two. And this the one that I spoke to, she kind of spilled the beans. She she told me that he had this person, this officer I reported, had a history of abusing both you know, both the you know her and then the previous ex wife and then his children. So she's I think a quote is he abused all of us. And then she told me that how they had met was, uh, that she was assigned to him when she was a cadet for training purposes.

Is that's how she met him? And so I, you know, I knew that these so I knew that there were some kind of abuse allegations, but I didn't know what they were at that point. So I said, like, did you guys look for any other victims? And around the table there was just like crickets. Nobody would answer the question. And so then so we left and h then you know,

we were told within a couple of days or maybybe maybe a week that the military just Washington felt that Colonel Bowling was not biased and therefore they were not going to pursue the matter further. So my attorney wrote a letter to Major General Peppen h requesting that the case be re viewed by somebody who did not have who did not have the potential or the appearance of bias.

And so Major General Peppins response to receiving this letter was to request that oh Stick the office of Special Trial Council, who had basically just been stood up, to review the case independently and offer their opinion. And so they did that, and I this case was the first case in the United States Army that Ostick reviewed, like number one. They hadn't even hired, they didn't have lawyers hired yet. It was it was a civilian. It was a civilian who was standing up the case or standing

up the office with like the the first. So the commander of the Special trialut councilor I think his name was Wells, I can't remember, I can't remember. But anyways, so she reviewed the case and at some point I met her, and at that point I basically said like, look, here's all of the here's all this other stuff. I don't know what this means, but this is this is what was told to me. That you know, there might be other abuse allegations out there, and so she, you know,

she kind of takes that and runs with it. And I don't know exactly, like while all of this is going on, I'm you know, I'm kind of waiting for this investigation to take place. I filed an IG complaint because my you know, my opinion at that point was they've already said they don't want to do anything. They've already said they're not going to pursue the matter further, even though like the manual court martial is pretty clear

that this is really inappropriate. And you know, then there was all the other issues that I told you about, like the flagging and the MPO and just random stuff that that I felt was a mislandling of a sexual assault case. So I filed an IG complaint against Colonel David Bowling, and that, like I filed it with a DoD ig highline that kind of hit their that hit the fan kind of quick like that, like my them

receiving that that went around and around. It took six months between like MDW and MCom and the Department of the Army, Like nobody wanted it. They didn't want to, They not want to investigate this, like they kept trying to say that it was somebody else's jurisdiction. So six months goes on where I'm just like, Okay, are you going to investigate this or what? And it wound up going to the Military District Washington their I G And I knew I found this out because I called him

and I said, look, have you received this? Are you investigating it? What's the deal? And he said, oh, I've received it. And I said, well, why are you going to Why is your office receiving it? Because you're going to investigate it. But the people that you have to investigate are the same ones that I have to adjudicate your findings. This is they're the same people that are that are potentially like part of the investigator. This is a conflict of interest, right. So then so then it

got kicked back to like somebody else. Eventually the investigator was somebody from the the g NIE, so the g

the h q T A G nine, they hold like sharp suicide Prevention, substance abuse, all of those like programs. It was somebody from that office. And to this day, I like, I don't have the results of that investigation. I have the results saying that it was unsubstantiated. But I don't have the results of it, which I will get into in a couple of minutes of why that's incredible.

This IG complaint was entered into evidence, and so the the officer I reported, the defense attorney requested it and he got it. So he's got it. The defense attorney has it, the results of the you know, IG complaint of a mishandling of sexual assault. The person I reported as having assaulted me has the results of this complaint two years later, you know, three years later, and I don't have it. I think that's just it's just bizarre to me. But in any case, so waiting around, waiting around.

You know what, you know, what exactly is MDW going

to do? I'm thinking they're going to do nothing. What actually what winds up happening is the UH Major General Peppin at about sixteen hundred, the day before has change of command in twenty twenty three, he's sends a response letter and I mean you can look at the dates of his change of command and the date on the response letter and it's literally the day before he sends it to my civilian attorney and saying, well, and I'm paraphrasing here, we don't really believe that Colonel Bowling has

done anything improper, but out of an abundance of precaution, we're going to send the case to another GCMCA for any and all further action. When does the Army do anything out of an abundance of caution, particularly legal matters? Never like So, so they send it to Fort Belbar and then it like sits and sits and waiting for like a prosecutor to show up. And finally finally they have the people like assigned to like properly review it,

and and I you know, I met with them. I think I get the I get the timeframes a little bit mixed up, but I met with them. I want to say it was in twenty twenty three, Okay, I want to say it was in the fall of twenty twenty. I think it got reviewed and then finally it got reviewed, and like I met with the prosecutor at Port Beobar, and like the first thing that they say is, well, are you still interested in pursuing the case, because we

want to we want to pursue a court martial. And I almost fell out of my chair because this guy's retired at this point. And again, how often does the military ever ever pursue any charges against retirees I taken.

and reached out. And that's why you were reaching out to me. I didn't put two and two together until that moment.

with like the second Special Victims Council. So they cycled in and out, you know, and at this point, I, you know, I've had I had PTSD like pretty much right away, and it by this point, it's just it's it's like ongoing, you know, it's just kind of continuous at this point. So I'm listening in on this team's call and they were the chart sheet. It it listed like there was chunks blocked off because there was another victim on the chart sheet. And but I didn't know

who it was for sure. I had ideas of who it might be and what. Well I learned the team's call because they discussed the other charge. When they discussed all of you know, all of it with the preliminary hearing officer, and so they made a point to you know, to appoint an experienced preliminary hearing officer for this one, so that was a positive. He you know, he asked questions about the other charge specifically, was was he needing to be concerned about uh, like, uh, what's the word like?

Parental discipline? So I guess as a parent you can use physical some a level of physical force to punish

your child and discipline your child. I don't know, but he was asking questions like that because the other the other person that was named as a victim was the h at the time, the minor son of the officer I reported, and the details that I heard on this team's call was that there was some sort of like altercation where he hit the sun with a bottle of something, and then some altercation happened that resulted in like strangulation, and then the the then minor son fled to the

neighbor's house and told somebody. And I missed this part of the told somebody that he felt like he was going to die, and so I was I was just like, oh my god. And then the date of when this transpired was three years prior to when I ever met this person on a dating app So I initially hearing this, I was kind of just like really kind of floored. Like I was just like, oh my gosh, but I was also sort of like I was right. I was, I was, I was exactly right. He's he's every bit

of a violence. Like all of my instincts were right. And but then like it kind of hit me several days later that this meant that number one, the Army could have Okay, I missed, I missed one of the points. What was also discussed was that when this altercation occurred, it went through it went through the Virginia court system, and the officer I reported pled no contest to domestic violence in a court in the state of Virginia, and

in Virginia it's that's the same as a conviction. So this person was walking around the Pentagon for three years before I ever met him with a domestic violence conviction, well the same plating no contest, it's the same as a conviction with at TSSI and the military did nothing

with that, like and so what started to sink in for me was, well, number one, you could have prevented it, and you didn't. And then when I reported it, even if even if you didn't believe me for whatever reason, you still did nothing with this other this other victim that was out there and instead you just you just

slap a bow on him and retired him. And so like there's the get I mean, I was kind of just disgusted at that point that I had and like a year and a half of my life gone because and then not only that, but like Colonel Bowling, who was the one that did it, Dick pick six is

the one that signed off on all this. It was just the most It was disgusting to me that that that can happen at the Pentagon because if that's happening to me, and I mean, I I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I have two degrees, I had access to multiple lawyers, and I did this because this is what the Army tells us that they want us to do. So if this is happening to me, you know, with oh stick being involved, what else is happening out there? For like young soldiers, right, they don't

know to do all this. They don't have like twenty years of experience where they, you know, a little light can go on in the back of their head and go, something's not right here, getting I'm getting a shade shoddy deal. They don't have that experience to make to recognize that

when it happens. And I mean I can tell you that like what you probably also experience, you know, talking to other like victims of sexual violence and domestic violence, is there's a lot of like there's like a shame component. So if somebody tells you it's your fault or they can't do anything or blah blah blah, it's sort of like you don't want to believe it. But then there's part of you that just sort of repeats that lie to yourself over and over again. It's like, I mean,

it's like the shame part of it. So, I mean that's a really big part of why I'm glad to be coming on your podcast today is because this can happen to me, Like I cannot imagine what's happening for specialists twenty you know, twenty year olds going through this. So let's see here. Okay, So after you know he's charged a second time, then there's like a series of like motions, there's a there's a trial schedule, the trial

winds up getting delayed and delayed. There at a certain point, there's like a plea agreement offered and I reject it. Outright because they wanted to call it conduct becoming. They wanted to take sexual assault all the way down to

conduct on becoming. And I was like, no, No, If you say that it's conduct on becoming because he's actually assaulted me, that's fine, But otherwise no. During one of the one of the motions, Colonel Bowling was was listed as a witness to testify, and I like the attorney, I mean the defense attorney I think was going to make it was going to make this. I think what was going to happen is he was going to try to make this like side show of like it's not

about that, it's about Colonel Bowling. I think he was going to do that. And I think Colonel Bowling was going to testify to the effect of how awful it was for having his promotion packet delayed all this time, and how awful that was for him.

I just I don't believe it. I don't believe that you charge a retiree for a crime that occurred, you know, two and a half years prior, and then a month before the trial dismissed the case because you're concerned about evidence. I think what what I think what happened is that they knew that this was going to be some sort of circus. I think it was. I think it was because it was related to that I told you so. I told you before, like my IG complaint naming Colonel Bowling.

Colonel Bowling was all over it. I mean, it was one hundred percent against him and nobody else that was in the evidence, and it like I think the defense attorney was going to make it about that so that they could get, you know, the guy off I think the other thing that like what was going on was so I told you there was quote unquote concerns about evidence, but they also weren't saying what evidence they were keeping out.

So with all the motions, they can be like motion to dismiss because of blah, motion to exclude evidence because of blah blah blah. Well what you might already know this, Like I'm guessing you have some you have some experience

like working with people that in the U cum J. Like you have some experience, it sounds like where and they don't have to they don't have to provide those motions. So I would say a comparison is the federal the federal court system. Every time something happens in one of these cases that the president is involved in or even like, uh, you know that that the guy that shot the or allegedly shot the healthcare CEO. Yes, and he's being he's

being prosecuted. You can look online and you can find out the last motion his attorney filed to exclude evidence.

motions should be public. Because a judge is explaining, he's explaining the law, he's explaining how he's implementing the law, they should be public.

hearing and listen into what's being said. But after the trials complete, if you request those transcripts of it, they start citing the Privacy Act. They start citing that the trial it just ended. But the case is still in appeals, so we can't release it. Like they're literally making stuff up because they don't want to release that information to the public. And as far as I can tell, that's illegal. I'm pretty sure it's an illegal act for them to withhold that information from the public.

all of the members of all these advisory committees. But these advisory committees review u CMJ on an ongoing basis, like every five years, they look at the u CMJ and they recommend, well, we should change this, we should change that, you know, we should change how this hearing

is structured, what like little things. What they recently suggested was all of all of these things that we're talking about, is that Congress should I mean, this is like I want to say, either December of twenty twenty four or January of twenty twenty five. Their recommendations for the changes to u CMJ included Congress should blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And there's information in there about victims rights.

There's information in there about making court filings, all of all court filings pre and post trial available to the public, in the same manner as as they call it, the PACER systems, in the same manner as all the other court cases in the country. So it's out there. It's just being ignored, which I and okay, the let me see here. Okay, I guess I need to wrap up some of the stuff I got. I got a long tangent. Okay,

so it again. The the got dismissed, and I like went out of my way to ask questions because I can't complain about not getting something unless I unless I ask for it, and I don't receive it. So I asked the Office's Special Trial Council, like, what's you know? You believed in the case back then? Why aren't you? Will you take it now? And so then that meeting was very interesting. That meeting was pretty interesting. Prior to that meeting, I attended another trial because my attorney the

civilian attorney I worked with. He like was the attorney for another trial US versus John Batt. So you may or may not be familiar with that case, but that person was that officer. He was a major assigned in the Military District of Washington, and Colonel Bowling was the initial disposition authority when some of those cases were initially reported. And that case went to trial I think in like June maybe of twenty twenty five, so it was local. It was at Fort Mead. So I went to it.

My attorney suggested it. He's like, if you wanted to learn more about all of this, you know, this is what you don't get or this is what you didn't get basically, so I did out of curiosity, and I what struck me immediately was well, the defense attorney was the same attorney for my case, like soame same guy. And then it also, like the timelines was some of the victims was Colonel Bowling was the initial disposition authority

for those victims. And then I realized there's I mean, there's public information out there about John Batt and he was able to he was able to go to the U what is the Command Selection School? I forgot what it's called be CAP. He was able to go to be CAP and also make the promotion list for H five while he was being investigated for sexual assault. So I was just he was also like his previous duty assignment was a seventy fifth agent regiment, so I was

just like kind of really floored. I was like, oh my gosh, like Number I was absolutely right, like all all of these things where I was like, oh, they didn't flag him right, and blah blah blah. I was right about all that stuff. But was also really interesting was watching this trial where this guy, you know, what the other victims were saying was he was like a serial rapist and strangled people. Pretty gruesome stuff. There were

fifteen victims in that case. But what was bizarre to see was they met the guy the same way they met him on a dating app. And like when I compared, So I'm not an attorney, but I feel like I'm a pretty smart person. And when I compared what I knew as evidence in my own case and then I compare the evidence of like each individual, you know case, I was like, well, the evidence in my case was better. So I went, you know, when I had this meeting

with Ostick I kind of brought that up. I was like, well, the evidence in my case was better than any one of those individual like reports of rape that you just prosecuted and you won and the guy got sentenced to fifty years, So what the heck? And they kind of said, like, well, there was only one of you, and there were fifteen of them in that case, and there was only one of you that was the that was like them. I'm paraphrasing,

but that was the gist of the discussion. And so I mean, again, like I'm grateful that I can talk about this with you because on you know, on a platform, because because Ostick hasn't solved like there's I mean, we've just listed off like dozens of things, right We've just talked about dozens of things that that O Stick was never going to the Office's Special Trial Council was never going to be able to solve lots of these things that that we've listed out, And you know, now military

sexual assault is like it's no longer on Congress's radar, and obviously, like I know the world has a lot of things to deal with right now. Arguably, we you know, need to figure out what we're doing as a country in order to deal with military sexual assault. Right, But I suppose I just, you know, I'm grateful to have this platform just to be able to talk about some of the stuff.

It is, so I asked some really specific questions of like, you know, when are you when are you going to appoint members to the advisory committees that recommend, you know, updates and changes to how sexual assault cases are prosecuted. When are you going to do these things? I was blown off. I I think I's not you like that response. Yeah, I was summarily blown off. So I you know. Yeah,

that's I mean, that's where it is right now. Again, like I I understand that the country has lots of things to contend with right now, but the Secretary of Defense is harming more than he is helping this this

issue of sexual assault. So the congressional inquiry, it did go to Senator Earned, Senator Gillibrand, you know, with citing your article all over the place, and supposedly they reviewed it, and they reviewed the contents of it with the Senate Armed Services Committee Personnel Subcommittee, and Major General Peppin is still out there in some command position, I believe, so I I yeah, from a personal standpoint, I'm not quite sure where I'm going after this, but definitely some kind

of like advocacy of some sort in the future.

Belvoir when he brought all the generals in. I mean, I have a quote from a friend who said, I don't know how anybody could take that as being basically just a dog whistle for sexual assault. That was this person's. That was a friend of mine's interpretation. So I hmm, let me see other other service members that have experiences that I've that I've talked to. I will refer to that bat case John Batt. Fourteen of the of the

fifteen victims that participated in the trial were civilians. And this case went to trial because a group of civilians got on a Facebook page and talked about who was raping everyone one So they're obviously like, you know, fifteen people, well he he didn't just start doing that yesterday. He was assigned in the Military District Washington for probably two and a half years, three years before you got before

you got court martialed. There was one and I think somebody that was close to the case told me that she thought that maybe the only reason that that victim was included was so that it didn't look like it was a bunch of civilians and no female service members. So there were What I'm saying is that there were female service members, lots of them chose not to participate.

this is evidence that this will not be tolerated. We don't tolerate this in our military. They cited this case as evidence of that. But I looked at it and I was like, Okay, so you mean you mean the case where ninety eight percent of the victims or civilians that's the case that you're citing, is no tolerance, none of many.

other people, one right after the other. And then I think the other thing that I noticed a lot of was all of the victim's rights. So if you are a victim of a crime, you automatically get you get this little pamphlet and it says here's your rights. Like seventy percent of the time and this was just interesting because there were so many people. Seventy percent of the time, whenever there was like a conflict between the perpetrator's rights

versus the victim, the judge was favoring the perpetrator. The John batt the individual accused of the crime, like seventy percent of the time if there was like a conflict between the two, he would side with the perpetrator. So I think, I'm what I'm getting at is that we were allowing this. We are setting the conditions to allow these rape myths to drive, charging decisions to drive. If people don't get charged, then everybody thinks, well, the problem

isn't that bad. And if the problem is not that bad, well then probably that person's just they're just they're exaggerating their stories. And if the evidence doesn't wind up going into the trial, well you think will There's only one person. It's like a self flicking ice cream cone, and the legal apparatus is there to allow for it to happen. That's what I'm That was my takeaway of all of this. And so again like I you know, I took the

pill and I can't unknow any of this anymore. But I don't think that younger female service members do not understand like that.

not backing down. The Army is gonna they're going to go through this until it's done. It's it's not going to be me that is the person that decides that all this is over. If I even if I hadn't done that, well, I was still exposed to a person that should have been kicked out three years before I met him and assaulted. Even if I hadn't participated in the court martial process at all, that still happened. And then when I reported it, people covered it up. So no,

I would not recommend. I my goodness, I think I have like twenty twenty five nieces and nephews right now. I would not I would not recommend to pursue military service, especially not now, especially not so.

It shouldn't be like that, and a lot of the things that you've been talking about on this show, Beth and A. It's very frustrating for me as sort of an outside observer of some of these things, because these are problems that do have many of them have solutions. I mean, getting to justice is Getting to justice is difficult sometimes a lot of times it is. It's a tough process. But there are solutions to many of these

things that you've mentioned. Many of these like bureaucratic hurdles that don't work, they don't make sense, and we could have resolved them. Man, we could have resolved a lot of this stuff in like the nineteen nineties if we wanted to. But then you see all these like scandals coming out and women being murdered, sex assaults, and the

public becomes very aware of it. And even then, as you point out, the military has still not fixed these problems, and they will gaslight victims but also gaslight the American public and tell them in these hearings we're doing things, We're fixing this. We found no malfeasance in our ranks, no ethical concerns at all, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, just going through their teeth.

twenty two years of my life. I've always been accountable to a commander somewhere and I'm not now. And it's a really good feeling. I have to I have to say or just to be able to talk about some of the things, to be able to go on this podcast and talk about what I dislike about what the government did or didn't do. Just the ability to do that is really refreshing. So I would say, yeah, like, I'm I'm intending to pursue some kind of advocacy in this space, and I'm still trying to I'm figuring out

what that means. Still still I'm figuring out what that looks like.

find a lot. I couldn't find very much that was like recent that of somebody that had gotten through this like recently. And I mean a lot of people never speak out about it at all. So I decided really early on, like if I had the opportunity to do so, I'm doing that because when I was going through this and I was absorbing all this, you know, everybody else's experiences, it made me feel less alone. So that's the other big piece, you know, is that if you are going

through this, you're not alone. It's not you. You're probably being gas lit every which way to Sunday. It's not you. It this is this is a The SHARP program has come a long way, but but there's still so many more things that could be that could be improved upon and allowing for somebody to go through this and have a better experience as opposed to just ensuring that justice has served for the perpetrator. So that's it. Thank you Jack. I really appreciate you allowing me to come on here.

Thank you so much.

topical or current on the high side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're gonna get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have you know the greatest hits of that week. It's really good checking it out. The website for it is Teamhouse Podcast dot kit dot com, slash Join, Teamhouse

Podcast dot kit dot com slash Join. You go there and you enter into your email list or you enter your email into you uh the little thing on the website and you're good to go. And that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and I hope you'll consider signing up. Where's the link. The link will also be down the description if you're looking for it there, and that's Teamhouse Podcast, dot Kit, k I t Kilo India, Tango dot com backslash joint