A U.S. soldier who\u00a0fled to North Korea\u00a0has been accused by the Army of multiple crimes, including deserting, assaulting fellow soldiers and soliciting child pornography, according to documents obtained by NBC News.<\/p>\n
Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King, 23, was expelled by North Korea in late September and taken into U.S. custody in neighboring China, officials said at the time. His release came two months after he ran across the fortified border between North and South Korea, where he was stationed.<\/p>\n
King is charged with eight counts, according to the charging sheet, including desertion in connection with his dash into North Korea, one of the world\u2019s most reclusive countries. <\/p>\n
In two other counts, he is accused of soliciting a Snapchat user to produce child pornography and possessing a video of what appears to be a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.<\/p>\n Other accusations include attempting to escape from U.S. military custody in October 2022, leaving base after curfew, striking other military personnel and drinking alcohol against orders, the document says.<\/p>\n King ran across the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea on July 18. Earlier that day he had been escorted by the U.S. military to an airport outside Seoul, where he was to fly back to the U.S. for possible further disciplinary action after serving 48 days in a South Korean prison in lieu of paying a $4,000 fine on charges that included damaging public property.<\/p>\n Instead of getting on the plane, King joined a civilian tour group headed for the joint security area along the DMZ, a senior administration official said at the time. During the tour he broke from the group and ran across the border \u201cwillfully and without authorization,\u201d Defense Secretary\u00a0Lloyd Austin\u00a0said.<\/p>\n Little is known about how King was treated in North Korean custody, and he has not publicly explained his actions.<\/p>\n King, who returned to the U.S. on Sept. 28, had been undergoing re-integration at Joint Base San Antonio but was transferred to Fort Bliss, Texas, on Wednesday. A military commander signed an order committing him to pretrial confinement, one of his lawyers said. <\/p>\n King\u2019s legal team believes that was an error, and a hearing likely to be held next week will determine whether he remains confined, said Franklin D. Rosenblatt, the lead counsel of King\u2019s legal team and an assistant professor at the Mississippi College School of Law.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ask people to be fair-minded about this and to withhold judgment,\u201d said Rosenblatt, who previously represented Bowe Bergdahl, the former Army soldier who pleaded guilty to desertion after he walked off his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured by the Taliban.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we just have to tread really carefully when we take people who have returned from captivity and decide we\u2019re just going to throw the book at them and put them in pretrial confinement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n King\u2019s mother, Claudine Gates, said in a statement Thursday that she was concerned about her son\u2019s mental health and that he should be presumed innocent. <\/p>\n \u201cA mother knows her son, and I believe something happened to mine while he was deployed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI am grateful for the extraordinary legal team representing my son,\u201d she added, \u201cand I look forward to my son having his day in court.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [ad_1] A U.S. soldier who\u00a0fled to North Korea\u00a0has been accused by the Army of multiple crimes, including deserting, assaulting fellow soldiers and soliciting child pornography, according to documents obtained by NBC News. Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King, 23, was expelled by North Korea in late September and taken into U.S. custody in neighboring China, officials …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Pvt.](\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best\/rockcms\/2023-07\/230724-travis-king-mn-1105-72b334.jpg\")
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