Recent cases involving Fort Bliss soldiers, whether prosecuted on base or by state and federal authorities, include espionage (attempting to send details of tanks and combat operations to Russia), kidnapping and rape (woman held for more than a week in El Paso), murder of a fellow soldier, child exploitation and AI-generated child abuse content, severe child abuse (holding a knife to a child’s throat, confinement in a garage, starvation), and animal cruelty (dog found hanging from truck). The pattern reflects the full range of OSTC jurisdiction and federal prosecution: national security violations, violent crime, child exploitation involving emerging technology, domestic abuse, and felony-level cruelty. Fort Bliss cases draw attention from CID, federal prosecutors, and El Paso law enforcement.
Fort Bliss borders Mexico. El Paso sits directly across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez, connected by international bridges that soldiers cross for bars, clubs, and trouble. What happens in Juárez doesn’t stay in Juárez. Arrests on the Mexican side can trigger CID investigations. Incidents involving Mexican nationals, even consensual relationships that go wrong, can result in charges on the American side. The border proximity also affects pretrial confinement decisions. Commands and military magistrates treat Fort Bliss soldiers as higher flight risks than soldiers at installations hundreds of miles from an international border, even if there is no evidence suggesting flight might happen.
Fort Bliss covers 1.12 million acres across west Texas and southern New Mexico, making it one of the largest military installations in the United States. The post is headquarters for the 1st Armored Division, a heavy mechanized force designed for large-scale ground combat. The division trains on desert terrain that replicates deployment conditions in the Middle East and other arid environments.
Fort Bliss also houses the Air Defense Artillery School, which trains soldiers to operate systems like the Patriot missile battery, THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), and other platforms designed to intercept aircraft, drones, and ballistic missiles. The installation supports live-fire training for air defense, artillery, and armor units across hundreds of thousands of acres of open range.
El Paso is the primary city adjacent to the post, with a population of around 680,000. The city economy is tied to both the military presence and cross-border trade with Juárez. Albuquerque is 270 miles north. Las Cruces, New Mexico is 45 miles north. Soldiers fly into El Paso International Airport, which handles both domestic and international traffic.
Article 133: Conduct Unbecoming an Officer
You probably still don’t know what conduct violates Article 133. Nobody does. The instruction defines dishonor using disgrace, then defines disgrace by whether something “seriously compromises” a standard the instruction never identifies. Panels are told to determine whether an officer had adequate warning that conduct was prohibited, even when no rule, regulation, or service custom ever prohibited it.
How the charge works:
The military judge instructs the panel using terms like “dishonor” and “disgrace” without defining them. Those words have no legal meaning. What one panel member considers a lapse in judgment, another treats as proof the officer is unfit to serve. The decision rests on personal opinion, not facts mapped to legal elements.
The Manual for Courts-Martial states that conduct can be “unbecoming” even if it only “approximates” another offense without meeting all its elements. If a sexual assault charge is weak, prosecutors argue the conduct was unbecoming at minimum and let the panel convict on that. The officer gets punished for something that wasn’t proven.
No real law has to be violated:
Article 133 doesn’t require breaking a written law, regulation, or order. The panel decides, after the fact, whether the officer should have known the conduct crossed an invisible line. There’s no way to predict the standard because it doesn’t exist until the panel creates it.
Here is the actual instruction judges read to panels:
“A military officer holds a particular position of responsibility in the armed forces, and one critically important responsibility of a military officer is to inspire the trust and respect of the personnel who must obey the officer’s orders. Conduct violative of this article is action or behavior in an official capacity that, in dishonoring or disgracing the person as an officer, seriously compromises the officer’s character, or action or behavior in an unofficial or private capacity that, in dishonoring or disgracing the officer personally, seriously compromises the person’s standing as an officer. This article includes misconduct that approximates, but may not meet every element of, another enumerated offense. An officer’s conduct need not violate other provisions of the UCMJ or be otherwise criminal to violate Article 133. The gravamen of the offense is that the officer’s conduct disgraces the officer personally or brings dishonor to the military profession in a manner that affects the officer’s fitness to command the obedience of the officer’s subordinates so as to effectively complete the military mission. The absence of a ‘custom of the service,’ statute, regulation, or order expressly prohibiting certain conduct is not dispositive of whether the officer was on sufficient notice that such conduct was unbecoming.”
Officers are prosecuted under this framework. Calling it a standard would be inaccurate. It’s authorization for panels to punish conduct they personally find objectionable.
How to defend a 133 charge
Reciting facts won’t work against a charge with no fixed definition. The defense controls the panel’s perception of what happened. The best defense is an early offense: intervening with prosecutors right away. You rarely see Article 133 prosecuted as a standalone charge. Serious prosecutors don’t want to spend their time on bullshit cases based on tacked-on, catch-all, undefined charges. The defense needs to shrink the case down by presenting favorable evidence to the prosecution on the other charges, attack them at the Article 32 hearing, creating reasonable doubt and getting a skeptical comment about those charges from the hearing officer. It’s far less likely the prosecution will want to go to a General Court-Martial on a 133 alone. If you can make the case that small, or close to it, the chances of a dismissal or an administrative disposition will go up significantly.
Court-Martial Basics
A court-martial is a criminal trial under military law. It enforces the Uniform Code of Military Justice and applies to all service members. Three types exist: Summary (minor misconduct), Special (mid-level offenses with career-ending potential), and General (serious crimes with penalties including life imprisonment or death).
The sequence: investigation, potential Article 32 hearing to evaluate evidence, then referral by command or OSTC. The accused receives appointed military defense counsel and can hire civilian representation. Trials follow federal evidence rules. Judges impose sentences.
Appeals proceed through military appellate courts and can reach federal civilian courts. Each stage creates opportunities to challenge evidence, suppress statements, or demonstrate prosecutorial overreach. Waiting until charges are preferred wastes those opportunities. Early defense engagement—during investigation, before referral—determines whether weak cases advance or collapse before trial.
What Happens During CID Questioning
Interrogations follow a script. Investigators claim they already have proof. Then they suggest a lesser version of events that sounds easier to accept. In sexual assault cases, agents use the “just the tip” minimization. It sounds like mitigation, but under Article 120 any penetration satisfies the rape element. Agreeing to their softer narrative is a full confession.
The safe response: request counsel and say nothing else. Once you invoke the right to an attorney, questioning stops. Statements made after invocation get suppressed. Every word before invocation becomes evidence. Silence protects you. Talking, even to clarify or deny, gives prosecutors material to use against you at trial.
Article 120 Crash Course: Memory and Proof
The brain doesn’t record events. It rebuilds them from pieces, emotion, and suggestion. A confident witness can be completely wrong. Stories change with each telling. Alcohol and trauma distort recall and generate false details. When memory has gaps, the mind invents plausible content to fill them.
Blackouts erase memory formation, not consciousness. The person remains awake and active while the brain stops recording. Fragmented memories get reconstructed through guesswork that feels authentic but isn’t.
Emotion demonstrates distress, not guilt. Panels must distinguish between feeling and evidence. Science and logic counter the pull of sympathy. Confirmation bias filters facts to support predetermined conclusions. Hindsight bias reinterprets neutral actions as red flags after accusations emerge.
“Why would someone lie?” assumes lying is the only alternative to truth. False accusations stem from shame about actual events, external pressure to report, fear of consequences, desire for advantage, or influence from counselors and advocates who reinforce one narrative until the accuser believes it herself.
Article 128b: Domestic Violence Defense
The first things to do in the wake of an allegation:
Invoke your rights immediately. When CID asks for “your side of the story,” say: “I am not making a statement. I want a lawyer.” Then stop talking.
Refuse consent to searches. Never allow phone or home searches without a written warrant. Never provide your passcode.
Stay silent with Family Advocacy Program. FAP interviews generate statements used against you. They are not confidential or harmless.
Obey protective orders exactly. A single text message, phone call, or “accidental” encounter adds charges and destroys your defense positioning.
Hire counsel now. Silence protects you until your attorney begins advocating on your behalf.
Why Article 128b is prosecuted aggressively:
Congress created Article 128b as a career-ending offense. It falls under OSTC jurisdiction, which means prosecution by the Army’s most experienced trial counsel with institutional pressure to secure convictions. Traditional command discretion doesn’t apply. OSTC decides whether to prosecute, not your battalion or brigade commander.
Allegations during divorce or custody disputes:
Commands and FAP offices handle hundreds of accusations that originate in family court as leverage. A strong defense investigates motives: who benefits from making you look violent, who gains from your conviction. The answers are usually transparent. The goal is showing command (who issues military protective orders) and OSTC (who prosecutes) that the allegation serves litigation strategy, not justice.
Why hire civilian counsel for a domestic violence case:
Article 128b cases are prosecuted by OSTC attorneys trained to increase conviction rates. You need counsel who has faced them in court, understands their institutional priorities, can present exculpatory evidence during investigation, and has the credibility to convince them weak cases shouldn’t advance to trial. TDS attorneys are competent, but they operate within a system that limits early engagement. Civilian counsel can challenge the case before it becomes official.
Articles 117a and 120c: Image-Based Sexual Offenses
What these articles cover:
Both address non-contact sexual misconduct involving privacy violations or digital content. Article 120c prosecutes conduct like secret recording, peeping, or indecent exposure. Article 117a prosecutes wrongful distribution of intimate images or videos, even when the original recording was consensual.
Key distinction:
Article 120c: creating recordings or images without consent
Article 117a: sharing recordings or images without consent
Both carry confinement, discharge, and mandatory sex offender registration.
Common charges:
- Sending unsolicited explicit photos (prosecuted as indecent exposure under 120c, treated as digital equivalent of physical exposure with intent to offend)
- Distributing intimate videos made with consent (violates 117a once shared without permission; original consent is irrelevant)
How cases are proven:
Witness testimony, device metadata, phone extractions, chat logs, cloud backup analysis. Defense must scrutinize timestamps, sync records, chats, and file paths to challenge whether the accused knowingly viewed, recorded, or distributed anything.
Sex offender registration:
Most states treat convictions under 117a or 120c as sex offenses. Registration lasts decades or life and creates civilian consequences that outlast military punishment.
Device searches:
Never consent to phone/device seizure or searches without consulting defense counsel.
If you have to give your phone to CID, you don’t also have to give them your PIN. Your PIN is protected ”speech.” If you lock your phone with FaceID, that’s different. They can compel you to open your phone that way because your characteristics aren’t speech.
Phones contain exculpatory data and files that must be preserved and explored strategically, so back up your device securely in case your attorney want to see it.
Intent requirements:
Articles 117a and 120c don’t require proof of sexual motive. The conduct is inherently sexual. Prosecution only proves you knew or should have known that recording or sharing would invade privacy or cause harm. Whether you intended it sexually is irrelevant.
This is similar to “horseplay” charges under Article 120 cases where “intent to humiliate” converts hazing into sexual assault when conduct targets private areas, making it another sex crime that doesn’t require a sexual motive. The difference between this kind of case and those under Article 117a and 120c is that with those, the sexual nature of the conduct is inherent.
The New Relationship Between OSTC and the Defense
The Office of Special Trial Counsel is the Army’s elite prosecution unit. OSTC attorneys operate independently from installation commanders, report directly to the Secretary of the Army, and focus exclusively on serious criminal cases: sexual assault, domestic violence, child exploitation, murder. They’re experienced, well-resourced, and institutional pressure pushes them toward conviction.
That’s the threat. Here’s the counterweight.
OSTC prosecutes when they believe the evidence will hold at trial. Unlike traditional trial counsel who answered to convening authorities with political concerns, OSTC evaluates cases on merit. That independence creates leverage for the defense—if you know how to use it.
Smart defense doesn’t wait for charges. It engages OSTC during investigation with candid, direct communication. We present exculpatory evidence before they commit to prosecution. We frame weaknesses in witness testimony, forensic gaps, and constitutional violations in terms OSTC understands. When we show them a case won’t survive trial, they have the independence to dismiss it. Traditional trial counsel rarely had that freedom.
This requires credibility. OSTC won’t take defense counsel seriously unless that counsel has a track record they respect. We’ve spent two decades trying cases against military prosecutors at every level, including OSTC. We know their institutional priorities, their case evaluation standards, and what evidence moves them. When we present information during investigation, they listen because they’ve faced us in court and know we don’t bluff.
El Paso has competent UCMJ attorneys who know how to handle military cases. They can get you through an Article 32 hearing and a trial. But they lack the depth of experience that changes outcomes at critical moments. They don’t see the angles at preliminary hearings that stop weak cases before referral. They’re unfamiliar with federal prosecution dynamics, which matters when cases involve parallel civilian charges or federal investigators. They don’t have the established working relationship with OSTC that allows credible early engagement during investigation. And they probably want you deep into a conversation about your case before they tell you what it costs.
Fort Bliss cases require counsel who’ve defended soldiers at installations across the country, who’ve litigated against OSTC and traditional trial counsel for decades, and who have the institutional knowledge to recognize patterns commands follow when cases go public. Local attorneys can handle the mechanics. We change the outcome.
Free Case Review for Fort Bliss Service Members
If you are stationed at Fort Bliss and facing investigation, court-martial, or administrative action under the UCMJ, call us at 800-319-3134 for a confidential case review. We have defended soldiers at Fort Bliss and across the Army for more than twenty years, handling the exact charges OSTC was created to prosecute: sexual assault, domestic violence, child exploitation, murder, espionage, and violent crime. OSTC is the Army’s elite prosecution unit. We’re the counterpunch. We know how they evaluate cases, what evidence moves them, and how to engage them during investigation before charges are preferred. We’ve spent two decades facing military prosecutors in court and winning cases other firms wouldn’t touch. If you’re facing OSTC at Fort Bliss, you need counsel who’ve been fighting them since before OSTC existed.