Army major on trial for rape charges involving more than a dozen women
An Army major charged with sexually assaulting or raping more than a dozen women over a four-year period in the Washington, D.C., area began this week at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Maj. Jonathan Batt faces 63 accusations, which include 10 specifications of rape and 15 sexual assault charges against 17 women, according to the Army's Office of Special Trial Counsel. Batt also faces charges of aggravated assault, battery, obstruction of justice and abusive sexual contact.
Batt has pleaded not guilty to all charges, his civilian attorney Nathan Freeburg told Stars and Stripes.
The major was charged in October with 76 violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice against 20 women. Some of the charges were dropped prior to trial because some of the victims declined to participate in the proceedings, Michelle McCaskill, spokeswoman for the Office of Special Trial Counsel, told Stars and Stripes.
Army officer faces rape, sexual assault charges involving 20 victims
Court documents show that Batt is accused of a variety of sexual and aggravated assaults on women in Arlington, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., between 2019 and 2023, Stripes reported. Some women allege Batt choked them until they were unconscious before he raped them.
Other women allege he used sex toys on the women against their will and bit and slapped them without consent.
His obstruction of justice charge stems from an allegation that he told one person not to speak with 'someone posing as a police officer' about 'sexual allegations that some women are making against me,' Stripes reported.
Batt graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in 2007. He was commissioned as an infantry officer and has served with the 82nd Airborne Division, 5th Ranger Training Brigade, the 3rd Infantry Division and the 75th Ranger Regiment.
Batt served four combat tours in Afghanistan and was previously assigned to the Defense Department's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center in Crystal City, Virginia.
The trial is expected to last until June 27, McCaskill told Stripes.
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