How coincidental is it? she says. In short, a person like Lavigne would be a VERY difficult person to kill. After speaking with a chaplain, she met with her units SARC, or sexual-assault response coordinator, who took her to meet with agents from the bases Criminal Investigation Division. . No arrests have been made nearly five months after a Special Forces soldier and veteran were found dead Dec. 2, at Fort Bragg, an official said last week. Connecting Vets reached out to members of Lavigne's family for comment, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. I represented 1LT [First Lieutenant] Erin Scanlon as her special-victim counsel, Capt. At the time, he was so depressed, anxious, guilt-stricken, and strung out on drugs that its a wonder he was able to put on his full-dress uniform that morning. He denies that Lavigne was ever into dealing any sort of narcotics. Army investigators with CID had initially washed their hands of the case, but the two JAG prosecutors, Morman and Cohen, claimed to have only belatedly learned that the victim and defendant were both soldiers, which gave the military parallel jurisdiction to try Vallejo. soldier who had been accused of rape, and published his photo. Fort Bragg Delta Force Master Sgt. William J. Lavigne II, 37, and Army veteran Timothy Dumas, 44, as the two men found dead at a Fort Bragg training area on Wednesday. I was too scared to go to stores, the gym, and other crowded places. I know this was specifically Delta Force, but its like this across the whole of USASOC, using an acronym for the U.S. Armys Special Operations Command. No, Joe says. Years of proximity to military violence, as well as a culture of functional alcoholism and casual sex, left Jane feeling unworthy, damaged, and lost. Jane has dated multiple men on Delta Force at various times in her life. Special Forces soldier, Army veteran found dead on Fort Bragg were shot Vallejo is a notable exception. Ciolino said he feels the daughter's statement is an accurate reflection of what appears in the medical examiner's report. I had to get shots and blood drawn to get tested for STDs so many horrible times. Constant appointments with lawyers, detectives, investigators, and advocates had disrupted her military career, and caused her to miss out on her units 2017 deployment to Iraq. There were several people present, and the ABC officers learned that the men were military with security clearances. Out of deference to their service of our nation, the ABC officers let them off with a verbal warning. USASOC declined to comment based on concerns about privacy, but pointed out that a police investigation and a line of duty report have different burdens of proof. Im still spooked. She read USASOCs statement in The Fort Bragg Murders that some unspecified adverse administrative action had been pending against Lavigne at the time of his death. Over the course of twenty years and thousands of missions, he's fought desperately for his life, rescued hostages, killed and . She looked up and saw Scanlon emerge from the warehouse and start toward the only outlet to the street, a narrow strip of dirt parallel to the train tracks. I had no deployment stripes, Scanlon says. In Dumas' case, he had a Dec. 17 court date in. Green Beret gunned down by his best friend, a Delta Operator Poppe was unable to remember the substance of Matrafailos testimony, only that it involved some aspects of the investigation that had not been discussed., A few months after the trial, Matrafailo would be accused of making inappropriate contact with Scanlon on social media: sending her suggestive emojis, making weird comments about ads for lingerie, and the like. Sgt Lavigne was a Green Beret and Delta Force member. And I was in law enforcement for all of the years that he was growing up so I was very hard on my kids, tried to make them strong and independent. The hard-partying antics of the Coast x Coast club could certainly be seen as a manifestation of that sort of attitude, a sense of exemption from ordinary strictures and petty rules. Do Delta Force operators have a license to kill? Green Beret - Reddit The body of Master Sgt. We all knew him, says Roy Lynn Parker, 35. . LaVigne and Dumas were each scheduled to appear in court on unrelated cases in December and January, according to court records. Only 11 of the deaths were determined to have been from natural causes. He was a broken operator, a worn-out military part, destroyed by PTSD and substance abuse. On the afternoon of March 21, they arrived at Lavigne's home in the 1300 block of Anhinga Court in Fayetteville. He was seven inches taller than her and 70 pounds heavier. Fort Bragg officials announced that the Master Sgt. But pressing this line of inquiry served a clear ulterior purpose, Scanlon says: Trying to slut-shame me, and say that I did that all the time.. William Lavigne II, 37, pictured above, was found in Fort Bragg on December 2. Foul play suspected in deaths of sergeant and veteran at Fort Bragg Werent there plenty of people you could have called out to? But Scanlon didnt get caught with the staff sergeant, nor with Vallejo. Looking back on the court-martial, it was a solid case and my testimony was powerful, Scanlon says, but I was this lowly lieutenant up against Delta Force and USASOC and JSOC, and all that entails. Ms. And no one seems to know quite why. Leshikar's daughter said that, Uncle Billy was acting strange and that's why I let my daddy in, to the house. I only recently learned about Lavignes July 2020 arrest from a police report that the sheriffs office initially withheld. She told me, I feel like I just got raped.. Connecting Vets was provided screen shots of those charges and the court date. Im not a police officer. But Scanlons unit, despite its distinguished pedigree going back to World War I, is a division of the conventional Army, which is kept separate from top-secret JSOC by high walls, both literal and figurative. Master Sgt. What we noted was a warehouse that appeared to pull double duty as a gym and party location, the ABC officer wrote in an email to a colleague. The main one came back and said, Because it occurred in Fayetteville, we cant help you.. He was a great dude. Delta Force is the Army's special-mission unit for counterterrorism and hostage rescues. I said, No, find someone else. List of Delta Force members - Wikipedia Though attorney-client privilege normally protects the SVC-client relationship, Judge Nance found that Scanlon had waived the privilege by including the prosecution in the supposed conversation with her SVC. He says Lavigne smoked crack, that was his main thing. He was scheduled to appear in court March 12, 2019, but the charges and court date disappeared from court records. Then the Army erased all record of the trial testimony. This was in violation of regulations that forbid fraternization, or close personal relationships between officers and enlisted soldiers, but as the staff sergeant wasnt in her unit or her chain of command, she thought of it as little more than a peccadillo. It was standard practice at the time, Col. Kazin says. It didnt necessarily mean they didnt believe me. Unfortunately, her experience with the military-justice system greatly set back her career, and would overshadow her whole time in the Army. It is the last house in a quiet cul-de-sac on the backside of a neighborhood about 20 minutes away from Fort Bragg. No more than 10 minutes after arriving, Scanlon sent a text message to a 25-year-old staff sergeant, another soldier at Fort Bragg, whom she occasionally hooked up with. When USASOC announced Lavigne's death, and homicide, at a training area on Fort Bragg this month, Leshikar's mother described her reaction: When I found out he died, I wasn't happy, it made me sick. The 37 year old deployed 14 times and was a member of the Delta Squad, an elite special operations force which of course necessitates a wide variety of skills and training to join. It was not a decision to try to sneak it out of Cumberland County. The only purpose of convening the meeting with the DA, Col. Kazin says, was to make sure that the JAG prosecutors understood whether Scanlon preferred to have a military or civilian trial. The jury should have been brought to the location at night, she says. Scanlon maintains that her case was mishandled. Mr. Were not staying more than 20 minutes, they agreed. Now she demands answers, Illustration by Mike McQuade for Rolling Stone, Former Army Capt. That was a crazy ethical mistake.. Instead, everything was hushed up. Reached through his lawyer, Vallejo declined to comment for this story. SUBSCRIBE Today!Also available everywhere you listen to podcasts!The recent deaths of Army Delta Force member William J. Lavigne and Army Veteran Timothy Dum. According to him, agents initiated a collateral investigation with Fayetteville police. Scanlon was on the stand for eight hours, she says. First Class Mark Leshikar were best friends. A review of his uniform and decorations shows he was likely assigned to. Jane never saw Vallejo doing drugs, and unlike Lavigne, he didnt run around getting arrested, but she remembers him being at the center of a social scene that she describes as toxic. This was at the tail end of the Obama years, on the cusp of Trumps election. Instead, her aunt and grandmother relayed what she described. At times, she observed their operations on a video feed. Women made up the rest of the party: two young Army officers, the widow of a slain Green Beret, and a Las Vegas woman who belonged to a traveling company of women bartenders that dance and sing, according to her blog posts. Poppe does not find it remarkable, he says, that he simultaneously represented two members of the most elite military unit in the United States, one suspected of murder, the other accused of rape. No reporters attended the subsequent court-martial, and no transcript was made of the proceedings. He was quietly court-martialed and acquitted. He was charged with a felony for allegedly harboring an escapee. Because she is a minor, Connecting Vets is not identifying Leshikar's daughter and has not spoken directly to her. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. In addition, according to USASOC, the court reporter deleted the audio. Alycia Stokes written testimony read. Thats what it felt like. The next morning, Scanlon went directly to the Womack Army Medical Center and underwent a sexual-assault forensic examination. Lavigne retained him while still under Army investigation into the shooting death of Leshikar, he says. Dumas was an Army veteran who previously served as the property . The certificates dont indicate how long the bodies were in the woods. Only afterwards did I realize I didnt stand a chance.. Sgt Lavigne was a Green Beret and Delta Force member. Those deleted files were the only record of the testimony the jurors chose to believe over hers. It was on a public docket, so people can go look it up, says Col. Kazin; however, it was not necessarily on everyones radar.. The record states Dumas yelled police open the door after knocking. By the time of Vallejos trial, it was clear that the Army had missed a chance to intervene in the boundary-pushing, motorcycle-borne debauchery of the Coast x Coast club as early as September 2016, when Scanlon went to CID and alleged that Vallejo had raped her behind their un-permitted clubhouse in downtown Fayetteville, which just happens to be adjacent to the county jail, a building full of cops. I defaulted to what the USASOC prosecutor and the DA would decide, and consented to removal of the case to Fort Bragg, which resulted in an unanticipated four-month delay. I said no over and over.. Homicide case unsolved for Bragg Special Forces soldier and veteran Green Beret death raises questions, 1st Special Forces Command Line of Duty Memorandum. The Army never made a transcript of the court-martial, and destroyed the audio recordings as soon as it concluded, leaving no record of the testimony the witnesses gave, the arguments the lawyers made, or the judges oral rulings. You get everyone in for a forensic interview, get emails, social media and everything else in the next 48 hours. But I have accepted this new path. Delta Force's Dirty Secret - Rolling Stone The blond 25-year-old from suburban Phoenix had secured a lieutenants slot in the storied 82nd Airborne Division thanks to the good offices of one of her ROTC instructors at the University of Arizona. This little black site of a party spot is situated directly across Worth Street from the Cumberland County jail, a no-drone zone that is the biggest law-enforcement facility in the county. As a criminal profiler, Ciolino has investigated and exonerated death row inmates. Four .45-caliber shell casings were found at the scene. He was a part of Leshikar's funeral service, she said. Connecting Vets is not naming the Delta Force operator as attempts to contact him were unsuccessful, and he may still work on sensitive assignments. After that, she put up no more physical resistance. He would also self medicate with Valium. William LaVigne II, 37, and Army veteran Timothy Dumas, 44. Guys like Vallejo and Lavigne are constantly told that theyre the elite, the best of the best, the ultimate badasses, and when it comes to killing and capturing people overseas, they are. Hes vague about the shooting incident. LaVigne also was involved in other Cumberland County cases that never resulted in charges, records show. Unlike Tier 2, or white, special-operations forces, made up of ordinary Green Berets, Army Rangers, and Navy SEALs, JSOC units operate under Title 50 of the U.S. Code, which was controversially reinterpreted after 9/11 to permit the military to carry out covert actions, defined by the statute as foreign operations where it is intended that the role of the United States will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.. Delta Force member found dead at Ft. Bragg training site had a dark past. A senior defense official told ABC News in late March 2018 that the shooter was an active-duty member of a Special Missions Unit, known as Delta Force. On Sept. 8, 2021, the Coast x Coast club holds a public event in Fayetteville, at their usual haunt, Macs Speed Shop. The death certificate lists LaVignes cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds. Its hundreds of pages long, but does not include the testimony of witnesses or the arguments the lawyers made. During this time, and the months to come, Scanlon was represented by an SVC, or special-victims counsel, a military-appointed attorney. Theres no doubt that he was charged in Cumberland County, yet strangely, there is no trace of his arraignment or indictment in a publicly accessible database of North Carolina court records. On the way to the staff sergeants house, where shed spend the night, she looked at her phone and saw that Vallejo had sent her a text: How are you? Its like someone didnt want him to talk. She adds, Im scared to say words like this out loud.. A third juror asked the nurse who did the rape kit, In your experience, is it abnormal for the victim to smile in an exam photo?, Scanlon was called in for the reading of the verdict. The case is being investigated as a homicide, a spokesperson for Army Criminal Investigations Division told Connecting Vets. In 2020, The New York Times, Associated Press, and CNN would cover the sexual-assault allegation against a Navy SEAL on a base in Iraq. Seven soldiers face charges after Fort Bragg trooper's severed head found She still didnt know that Vallejo was an active-duty soldier, much less that he was on Delta Force. Master Sergeant. Helicopters crashed in mountains, fair weather, Army says, Army Special Ops Command welcomes first female command sergeant major, Army identifies 3 soldiers killed in Alaska helicopter crash, Army grounds helicopter fleet for force-wide safety stand down. The special operations community was rocked this week when the bodies of MSG Lavigne, a decorated Special Operator and Delta Force member, and Timothy Dumas an Army veteran were found in a . The three Delta operators who had been at the warehouse that night took the stand, as did the retired bomb technician, the two civil-affairs officers, and the dancing bartender, as well as the red-haired widow. According to a 2014 ATF report leaked to The Intercept, outlaw motorcycle gangs are proliferating in the military in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but aside from their vests and patches, the present-day Coast x Coast club looks more like customers in a Bass Pro Shop than Hells Angels. I was with them for years, constantly, she says. The wars that Delta Force had been on the bleeding edge of since 2001 had deteriorated into lost causes, but the special-operations forces had completed their takeover-from-within of the military, becoming the paramount force in the Pentagon, with the most political clout in Washington. If her aim was to avoid disciplinary action or professional embarrassment, she could have simply said nothing and no one would have been the wiser. Green Beret and Army veteran found dead at Fort Bragg were facing He had been in Delta Force. Scanlon lived off-post in an apartment in Fayetteville, a moody military town in the North Carolina pines just outside of Fort Bragg, the biggest Army base in the U.S. On the evening of Sept. 9, 2016, a friend of hers from the gym, a military wife whom Ill call Tina to protect her privacy, invited her to a charitable event at a barbecue restaurant and bar called Macs Speed Shop. And every time Lavigne reoffended, the charges against him mysteriously vanished. While Leshikar's daughter has been able to grow and thrive despite a traumatic event, the rest of the family feels they have been cheated by the Army and the Sheriff's Office out of ever seeing justice served, especially after Lavigne's apparent homicide. Fort Bragg deaths of Special Forces soldier, veteran remain unsolved Leshikar and Lavigne were also known to use cocaine, Leshikar's family said. In fact, studies show that the conviction rate on penetrative-rape and forcible-sodomy charges is generally lower in military courts than civilian ones. William J. Lavigne II, 37, was one of two men found dead Dec. 2 in a training area on Fort Bragg, N.C., the Army said in a statement. More than she questions Vallejos acquittal or the jurys decision, Scanlon simply wants to know what happened at the court-martial. Three of four gunshots struck Leshikar, according to the ME report. Even if Lavigne had been charged with or convicted of murder, says Col. Kazin of Army JAG, Vallejo would have had a constitutional right to call him as a witness, if he were in possession of relevant information. At the time he met Scanlon, who was nearly 10 years his junior, Vallejo was a sergeant first class. Besides Scanlon, the only people who testified for the government were Tina, the staff sergeant, the nurse who did the rape kit, and the friend who encouraged Scanlon to go to the police. But he was in JAG for 20 years and has represented such high-profile military clients as Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, and is unable to recall another time when a JSOC operator was arrested for a violent felony against a fellow soldier on U.S. soil, as was the case for both Lavigne and Vallejo. A guy whos in Delta Force would not be flashing his name around and having a nonprofit and partying at a bar. As of 2010, the document shows, he was a TEAM MEMBER/OPERATOR in the organization demarcated 1ST SFOD-D (DELTA FORCE)., Like SEAL Team 6, its sister unit and only military peer, Delta Force is whats known as a Special Mission Unit. Then, on Dec. 2, 2020, Lavigne turned up dead, shot multiple times in the chest, his body wrapped up as if for disposal, and placed in the back of his truck, which was left abandoned on a dirt road near Lake MacArthur. He was not a quiet professional, she says, using a term that special-operations generals came up with in the 1980s to describe themselves, and since repeated endlessly in the news media. And that was the reason why my case was handled the way it was. (Phyllis B. Dooney for Rolling Stone). Vallejo is considered a ladies man and groupies hang out at the ware house [sic] looking for an opportunity to sleep with Mr. Vallejo. This, the detective noted, was according to an employee of the Fayetteville Police Department who had to recuse herself from the case because she herself had once spent the night at Vallejos apartment. How did the Uber driver react to the distress shown by 1LT Scanlon? a juror asked Tina. The Special Forces of the U.S. Army are based out of Fort Bragg, as is the powerful and secretive Joint Special Operations Command, making this spot, inland of the Eastern Seaboard, the central. Hard drugs and murder in JSOC: "'We have a lot of Delta Force members Special Forces soldier found dead next to Army vet at Fort Bragg Thereafter, things moved very slowly toward a trial. The detective told me, This guys active-duty, she recalls. It had been, in retrospect, a dark period in her life, she says, a damaging, booze-soaked run of years in her twenties. Special Forces soldier found dead next to Army vet at Fort Bragg William told me that my brother had a screw driver but nothing was found at the scene, Leshikar's sister told Connecting Vets. First Class Mark Leshikar, two years prior. They said Lavigne's harboring a fugitive felony charge could be used to kick him out of Special Forces and discharge him from the military. Two men found dead at Fort Bragg identified as USASOC - Army Times She says he grilled her on the quantity of alcohol she had consumed, implying that inebriety had inclined her toward promiscuity. . Two ABC officers went to the location to check it out. Attempts to reach these people by phone were unsuccessful, but pretrial filings show that at least two of them were summoned to buttress Vallejos defense of consent. Soldier and veteran found dead at Fort Bragg had longtime ties to the She wasnt being truthful about her encounter with Cris Vallejo., They should not have allowed my lawyer to testify against me, Scanlon says. But Scanlon was in the courtroom on the first day of trial, and Rolling Stone obtained the trial record, which includes a list of witnesses, the lawyers written motions, the judges orders, his instructions to the jury, and other documents that make it possible to reconstruct much if not nearly enough of what happened.
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