Tinker Air Force Base is next to Oklahoma City. It’s home to the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, the largest of the three Air Logistics Complexes in Air Force Materiel Command. The complex provides depot maintenance, product support, and supply-chain management for 31 weapon systems across 10 commands, 93 Air Force bases, and 46 foreign nations. The 72d Air Base Wing handles installation support.
Tinker also hosts two tenant Air Combat Command units, two Air Force Reserve wings, and a Navy presence that includes Strategic Communications Wing One. The 552d Air Control Wing operates E-7 AWACS aircraft for Air Combat Command.
For serious UCMJ actions, Tinker falls under Air Force Office of Special Trial Counsel District 2, headquartered at Travis Air Force Base.
Tinker AFB Docket Activity
Tinker’s docket typically shows a mix of covered offenses, drug cases, and assaults. OSTC District 2 defers most of the cases it reviews, but they still take the strongest cases to court-martial.
Recent general courts-martial at Tinker include:
- Article 120b (sexual abuse of a child). Guilty. Dishonorable Discharge, 15 months confinement.
- Article 134 (child pornography). Guilty. Dishonorable Discharge, 18 months confinement.
- Article 119a (child endangerment). Guilty. Bad-Conduct Discharge, 52 days confinement, reduction, reprimand.
- Article 120 (sexual assault), Article 128b (domestic violence), Article 112a (wrongful use), and related offenses. Guilty. Dishonorable Discharge, 3 years confinement, reduction.
- Article 128b (domestic violence). Guilty plea. Bad-Conduct Discharge, 7 months confinement.
- Article 112a (wrongful use of controlled substances). Guilty. Bad-Conduct Discharge, reduction.
- Article 112a (wrongful use of controlled substances). Guilty. 60 days confinement, forfeiture, reduction, reprimand.
- Article 128 (assault consummated by a battery). Guilty. 60 days hard labor, reprimand.
Child Sex Offense and CSAM Cases at Tinker AFB
Even when the docket doesn’t show it yet, child sex offense and CSAM investigations can be active at Tinker.
The time to get counsel (ADC, civilian, or both) is as soon as you’re aware of trouble, not when the charges get served.
Child cases usually begin with a tip from an internet service provider or a civilian ICAC task force, then get transferred to OSI. OSI seizes the accused’s devices (and tries to get a confession while they’re at it) and sends them to an out-of-state forensic examination lab, usually the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) in Linthicum, Maryland. Eventually, sometimes after more than a year of investigation, OSTC makes its charging decision from its office at Travis AFB.
During the investigative period, the accused won’t have access to much legal advice or updates, apart from the standard “don’t talk” input from the ADC office, unless civilian military counsel gets involved.
Early defense interaction and advocacy during this period is crucial and can influence what OSTC decides to do with the case. A longer discussion of how these cases go when the military is running the show can be found here: How CSAM Cases Are Prosecuted And Defended.
Gagne, Scherer & Associates Cases at Tinker AFB
A female SrA with a serious drug addiction went AWOL. SFS arrested her and the commander ordered her into a civilian county jail under conditions that violated both the law and the military’s contract with the facility, including being housed with foreign nationals. Her command left her there and ignored requests for a visit. After she hired us, we entered a guilty plea without a deal, confident the military judge would give her additional credit for pleading without any protections. At trial, we filed a motion for additional pretrial confinement credit based on the illegal conditions. The military judge granted the motion and sentenced her to time-served, over the government’s objection that she should serve several more months. She walked out of court and was quickly processed back into civilian life.
We also represented a Navy petty officer assigned to Strategic Communications Wing One at Tinker. Frustrated by the lack of adequate mental-health care on base, he left without authority, checked himself into an inpatient rehabilitation facility, and stopped responding to his chain of command. The command figured out where he was and began pressuring his wife and threatening to have military police arrest him inside the facility. Within minutes of being retained, we contacted the Navy Staff Judge Advocate, negotiated for our client to remain in treatment until it was complete, return voluntarily to military control, enter the on-base program, and receive an administrative separation for a mental-health condition with an Honorable characterization. No UCMJ action was taken. We coordinated the administrative pieces with his Defense Service Office counsel in San Diego, but the decisive conversations were direct with the Navy SJA at Tinker.
FAQs by Military Personnel Facing Charges at Tinker AFB
Who handles OSTC decisions for cases at Tinker AFB?
Under a 2026 internal reorganization, specific OSTC counsel are now assigned to cover individual bases. The counsel covering Tinker is one that Gagne, Scherer & Associates has worked with for years on multiple past and current cases.
Can a civilian attorney represent me at Tinker AFB without an office in OKC?
Yes. UCMJ law, procedure, and evidence are the same at Tinker as at every other installation. Military specialists don’t need an Oklahoma bar license to do cases at installations in the state, let alone a physical office there. Local civilian attorneys in the Oklahoma City area rarely handle UCMJ cases. When an Area Defense Counsel at nearby Altus saw Airmen hire local counsel for cases at Tinker, those attorneys often had no military justice experience of any kind.
What happens when OSTC District 2 defers a case to Tinker?
Once OSTC D2 determines a covered offense does not meet the standard for prosecution, the criminal case dies. Under current Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals (AFCCA) precedent, the Tinker SJA and convening authority can’t get cute by repackaging the same underlying conduct (actus reus) into a non-covered lesser offense (such as Article 128 assault or Article 134 disorder) to force a Special Court-Martial. Unless the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) resolves the current inter-service conflict on this issue differently, jurisdiction returns to the base legal office strictly for administrative disposition, such as a Letter of Reprimand (LOR) or an administrative separation board. Because the burden of proof at a discharge board drops to a “preponderance of the evidence,” cases dropped by OSTC frequently become contested separation boards.
Is there any hope in a CSAM case at Tinker if the evidence looks solid?
Yes. Even when the evidence appears strong and the investigation was conducted properly, the government still has to prove its case. On CSAM cases that went to trial where conviction looked like a foregone conclusion, Gagne, Scherer & Associates has obtained full acquittals by sustaining objections that kept the government from getting any evidence into the record.
Should I waive my Article 32 hearing at Tinker AFB if probable cause is inevitable?
No. There’s almost never a good reason to waive this essential right, especially in a CSAM or other child case. Attorneys who try to justify waiving by saying it somehow preserves a secret defense, that it prevents the government from “perfecting” its case, or that it keeps the PHO from alerting the trial counsel to charging defects are either ignorant or lazy. If the evidence is weak, attack it when there’s no risk of a conviction. And OSTC is eager to get rid of cases. Give them a reason to dump yours. In a CSAM case involving civilian defense counsel, the Article 32 is often the first real chance the attorneys have to review the evidence.
Does an ADC have enough experience to defend ICAC and CSAM cases at Tinker?
No. While they can get by with the input of expert technical assistance and put together a competent plea deal, ADCs don’t have the scope of experience a firm that specializes in these cases will have. To stay current, an attorney needs to have CSAM and related cases as a core area of practice. A firm that handles CSAM work across multiple installations keeps a working network of digital forensic examiners, understands how internet service providers run their own review teams when a file has no NCMEC hash match, knows what NCMEC actually does and does not do, and uses the terminology set by the Luxembourg Guidelines. Gagne, Scherer & Associates has defended these cases in military court for decades and writes about it extensively on this site.
Gagne, Scherer & Associates: Tinker AFB Lawyers
Gagne, Scherer & Associates has handled cases at Tinker, Altus, and Fort Sill, and maintains a South-Central practice covering Oklahoma and Texas. If OSI has contacted you, or you are under investigation for a covered offense, call us at (224) 935-6172 before you talk to anyone else.