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. Leshikar was a member of 19th Special Forces Group and had previously deployed to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. A subsequent SOFREP investigation. 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. Now she demands answers, Illustration by Mike McQuade for Rolling Stone, Former Army Capt. He was also suffering from a traumatic brain injury due to an improvised explosive device detonating near him, which was why he was assigned to a desk job at Fort Bragg. He was brought down to the sheriff's office the day he killed Leshikar, and a Delta Force member came to pick him up, according to Leshikar's family. from 67] house in Fayetteville, he had shot and killed his closest friend, a Green Beret named Mark Leshikar, with whom he had been drinking and doing drugs for days on end during a family vacation to Disney World. or Erin Scanlon, a junior Army officer in the artillery branch, Fort Bragg was a prime posting. 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. I said, No, find someone else. In this regard, Poppe says that she was a commissioned officer a lieutenant who got caught having sex in a compromising position with an enlisted man, Vallejo, technically her military inferior. William J. Lavigne II, 37, was found dead with another man at a training ground in Fort Bragg on Wednesday, December 2, 2020. Shortly after she and Tina arrived at Macs the night of the fundraiser, Scanlon recognized the Coast x Coast clubs logo from a Facebook photo of her old ROTC mentor, the ex-Delta soldier, which made her implicitly trust Vallejo and his crew, she recalls. Special Forces soldier, William Lavign, who was found - KonnieMoments What the defense has to say, you dont want to hear. It was right around 3 a.m. My phone was being blown up by my friend [the staff sergeant] and the Uber driver, who was there trying to find me., Tina had gone out front to smoke a cigarette. They convened a weird meeting, Scanlon says, with her and the district attorney, Billy West, whose office declined to comment on this case or on Lavignes record of arrests. He was a great dude. William Lavigne II, 37, pictured above, was found in Fort Bragg on December 2. He was quietly court-martialed and acquitted. Why didnt you tell anyone about the witness that came around the corner? she remembers him asking. First Class Mark Leshikar, two years prior. Those guys, they would drink, and they would need to have sex, she says. Spokeswoman Christina Howell said she could not elaborate on the specifics of what happened because stories of individuals at the scene appeared to differ about why they were there and how they know each other, but that it did not appear to be a random incident. They would have these epic parties, tailgate pool parties, where they would put a liner in the back of a truck and fill it up with water. On one occasion, they hired midget wrestlers to come out, she says. Starting in 2019, victims who testify get a copy of the court-martial record, including audio, whether it was an acquittal or conviction.. In September 2021, almost 20 years to the day that he joined the Army, he held a retirement party in Colorado, where he now lives, not far from where he began his military career, at Fort Carson. He was charged with a felony for allegedly harboring an escapee. A nonprofit associated with the club, the Coast x Coast Foundation, raises money through annual cross-country motorcycle rides to honor fallen special operators. The detective told me, This guys active-duty, she recalls. They belonged to members of the Coast x Coast motorcycle club, made up of active-duty soldiers on Delta Force, a classified manhunting unit that is the Army component of JSOC. 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.. It took her months to get a military protective order against him. And in North Carolina, there is no statute of limitations for rape. No, Joe says. Leshikar's family alleged that Lavigne was never administered a toxicology screen to test him for alcohol or narcotics in his system following the shooting. They were officers in the Judge Advocate Generals Corps, assigned to the Special Forces. 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. He gave me his card and invited us to go to the next bar with everyone., They exchanged phone numbers, and a group of about nine, led by Vallejo, relocated from Macs to a bar called Paddys, an over-the-top Irish pub out on Raeford Road that has a metal detector at the front entrance, bartenders in Scottish kilts, brass bathroom door handles cast with anatomical exactitude in the form of male genitalia, and urinals shaped like a womans mouth. 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. I will keep fighting to put my life back together. William J. Lavigne II and Timothy Dumas, a veteran previously stationed at the post, were found dead at a training site on the base Wednesday afternoon. Four months before the night in question, Cumberland Countys Alcoholic Beverage Control received a tip from a police officer in Hope Mills, another satellite town of Fort Bragg, about a party occurring in downtown [Fayetteville] in which donations would be accepted, an ABC agent wrote in an affidavit attached to a warrant to search the warehouse and seize alcohol. She attained the rank of captain, but the missed deployment, the transfers between units, and the stigma that attaches to female soldiers who report being raped all the gossipy, nontangible ways, she says, that marks you out as a problem child diminished her prospects of advancement. He was originally set to be tried in civilian court, but Army prosecutors assigned to Special Forces swooped in at the last minute and caused the Cumberland County district attorney to drop the charges so that Vallejo could be tried by the military. Dumass dark-colored 2015 Dodge Ram pickup was discovered abandoned somewhere else, the news release stated. It was the last conversation he would have with his mother. William LaVigne II, 37 Army veteran Timothy Dumas, 44. shooting Bragg In Other News Some companies charge hefty fees to help vets with disability claims He had entered a plea of not guilty. 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. Editors picks That night he shattered my whole world, the statement read. It seems he crashed there from time to time. Yet, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office which ran the investigation of Leshikar's death since it happened off post, ruled it to be a "justifiable homicide." Meanwhile, Lavigne's career continued unabated at USASOC. But I know they dont feel how I would feel if I shot somebody.. No awards. First Class Mark Leshikar were best friends. There are at least two other SMUs, one dedicated to surveillance and the other to aviation, reportedly. As I wrote in The Fort Bragg Murders, Lavignes dozen-plus deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and elsewhere had left him addled with trauma and addicted to hard drugs and alcohol. Scanlon was on the stand for eight hours, she says. Dumas was an Army veteran who previously served as the property book officer at 7th Special Forces Group before serving in the same role at Fort Bragg for nine years, according to his LinkedIn profile. Another inconsistency was noted when Lavigne told officials, Leshikar was acting in a menacing manner but he could not see SFC's Leshikar's hands, which appears to contradict his statement that he saw that Leshikar brandishing a screw driver. She says she didnt tell her lawyer about it till months later. The record states Dumas yelled police open the door after knocking. As to any potential discharge, were not able to comment due to Privacy Act protections., When Connecting Vets reached out to CID on Fort Bragg regarding the deaths of Leshikar, Lavigne and Dumas, spokesperson Christopher Grey said: All I am releasing is it is a homicide investigation. My testimony was so long and painful. Throughout, she rigidly refused to make eye contact with Vallejo or even look at his side of the courtroom. Scanlon was looking forward to getting the ordeal over with. Dumas, Sr., 44, and Lavigne, 37, were found dead on Fort Bragg near Manchester Road in Cumberland County, North Carolina, on December 2, 2020. Former Commander of Delta Force from 1985 to 1989. Scanlon had to order another Uber, as the first one had given up and driven off. We are only assisting. But Chris Grey, spokesman for CID, tells me, FBI is leading that investigation., On the third and final day of Vallejos court-martial, June 27, the prosecution and defense delivered their closing arguments. Thats what it felt like. Because she was already guilty of one instance of fraternization, with the staff sergeant to whose house she had been headed to that night, she had a motive to lie and pretend that the encounter with Vallejo was nonconsensual, in Poppes theory of the case. But the instructions to the jury show that the judge, Col. Jeffrey Nance, allowed the panel to consider Scanlons relationship with the staff sergeant insofar as it was probative of her motive, if any, to fabricate her allegations against the accused. The judge cautioned the panel that they were forbidden to conclude that Scanlon, having willingly slept with one enlisted man, was likely to do it again; but to use an old legal clich, that was a bit like throwing a skunk into the jury box and instructing the jurors not to smell it. In February 2019, Lavigne had another brush with the law. According to a source who spoke to SOFREP on the condition of anonymity, Army investigators discovered that the truck belonged to 37-year-old William J. Lavigne II, an Army Master Sergeant. This experience led Beckwith to advocate for a similar unit in the US Army. Later that day, a city fire inspector went to the property and found multiple storage buildings in disrepair, surrounded by junked vehicles, barbecue grills, piles of wooden pallets, tiki torches, and other combustible materials. It was standard practice at the time, Col. Kazin says. Now, she told him that she would be over shortly, and used her phone to order an Uber to take her there. I represented 1LT [First Lieutenant] Erin Scanlon as her special-victim counsel, Capt. During this time, the two allegedly had an argument which then turned into a physical confrontation, according to a 1st Special Forces Command memorandum obtained by Connecting Vets. No unit patch. ICYMI episode: The slaying of Special Forces soldier Mark Leshikar That is not accurate, a spokesman for Army CID, Jeffrey Castro, writes in a statement. Calls to Cumberland Country Sheriff's Office detectives to ask specific questions about the investigation went unanswered and the Sheriff's Office did not respond to requests for further comment. The death certificate lists LaVignes cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds. Delta Force operator found dead on Ft. Bragg had a dark past - Audacy You want to think theyre not comparing?, According to Scanlon, Poppes initial line of questioning was not subtle. They only stayed that long because Tina was famished and there was a Crock-Pot of food on a folding table. In Dumas' case, he had a Dec. 17 court date in. William Lavigne II, 37, pictured above, was found in Fort Bragg on December 2. Finally, the trial was set to begin in late-February 2018. He then allegedly forcibly penetrated her vagina with his penis against her will, Detective Matrafailo wrote in his report. Its possible that it was expunged, a clerk tells me. The next morning, Scanlon went directly to the Womack Army Medical Center and underwent a sexual-assault forensic examination. He never denied having sex with Scanlon, but maintained that it was consensual. There is no screw driver here, that is enough to go DEFCON 4 on this. Lavigne retained him while still under Army investigation into the shooting death of Leshikar, he says. Jane was once deployed to a country in Southwest Asia and was stationed on the same base as a contingent from Delta Force. He was intoxicated, but happy, she said. Parker says that Lavigne once gave him money to cover some court costs. From the perspective of the Armys image-conscious leadership, the failure on the part of the press to catch wind of Vallejos court-martial was a lucky break. The warehouse is three blocks from police headquarters, but a spokesman for the Fayetteville PD denies knowing anything about the place, and had no relevant incident reports pertaining to the address. Whoever they are, they were capable of taking out one of the worlds most skilled and experienced gunfighters, without leaving any apparent clue for the FBI or CID to follow. As a criminal profiler, Ciolino has investigated and exonerated death row inmates. 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. 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. In the same filing, the defense notified the court of its intent to call the Green Berets widow, who would testify that she walked past the portable toilet and saw Cris with the blond girl having sex on a car, and that the female was obviously enjoying it., This was the red-haired woman whom Scanlon had briefly glimpsed during the alleged assault, a detail she had failed to relate to police. 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. Law enforcement later told Leshikar's family that they had found a screw driver, not at the scene of his death, but outside near his car where he had been removing the battery. He was a resident of Pinehurst at the time of his death. More Human Remains Found on Fort Bragg | SOFREP Dumas, an ex-soldier with a shady past, was found murdered along with Lavigne in the woods outside Fayetteville in December 2020. All of his questions were directed at Scanlons honesty and candor, he says. Rick described her brother's friend as a good and honorable man, although she is concerned with some of his actions that day. Howell was unable to say what threats Dumas directed toward the victim but that there was enough evidence to charge him with the crimes. A spokesman for the Army Criminal Investigation Command said the investigation continues into the deaths of Master Sgt. Four .45-caliber shell casings were found at the scene. 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. He is courteous, with an iron handshake, and gives his name as Joe. I dont know how we survived., Jane was well-acquainted with the site known as Warehouse 13. I was with them for years, constantly, she says. We all knew him, says Roy Lynn Parker, 35. The Ft. Bragg Delta Force Murders: New Details Come to Light This industrially zoned property, which Vallejo rented from a chemical company, is cut off from any obvious street access, being surrounded on all three sides by train tracks, storage buildings, and scrap yards. As Rolling Stone reported in a previous piece, "The Fort Bragg Murders," in March 2018 right around the time that military prosecutors took control of Vallejo's trial Lavigne shot and killed a Green Beret in the living room of his house in Fayetteville without suffering the slightest legal consequences.". 2023 Rolling Stone, LLC. One of the four Delta Force soldiers present that night was a 33-year-old from Michigan, Master Sgt. First Class Mark. I was too scared to go to stores, the gym, and other crowded places. 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. It was a fundraiser to honor five slain Green Berets, hosted by some SF guys, Tina texted. Ultimately, both CID and the sheriffs office determined there was no criminal culpability.. A toxicology report revealed trace amounts of Tramadol and Valium in Leshikar's system. Court documents state that Dumas broke into an apartment in Walkertown with the intent to terrorize and injure an occupant of the building, on April 11, 2020. 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. No reporters attended the subsequent court-martial, and no transcript was made of the proceedings. I think Ian, he said Will shot at him. A news release from the FBI in February stated that the bodies of the men were found near a Fort Bragg training area. Sketchy-looking, Scanlon describes it, comparing it to a rundown CrossFit gym, with a roll-up garage door, by a railroad track and a junkyard.. He had done three combat rotations with Delta Force two in Afghanistan and one in Iraq but she never guessed that he was a trained killer, in her words. She still didnt know that Vallejo was an active-duty soldier, much less that he was on Delta Force. 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. First Class Mark Leshikar . William LaVigne II, 37, and Army veteran Timothy Dumas, 44. I was pissed that another obstacle had gone up, she says. The military had kept it quiet, though. Mr. 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. Maybe I wasnt clear enough, she texted a girlfriend at 8:59 a.m. on Sept. 12. The main one came back and said, Because it occurred in Fayetteville, we cant help you.. When her contract was up in 2019, she resigned from the Army. We drank so much, she says. Tina watched Vallejo walk up behind Scanlon, causing Scanlon to dart off, according to the statement Tina gave Matrafailo. As the jury filed in, everyone stood. Among some operators, the result can be an unhealthy sense of entitlement, in the words of a Special Operations Command internal ethics review made public in 2020. William told me that my brother had a screw driver but nothing was found at the scene, Leshikar's sister told Connecting Vets. So Marky just took everything, the pride in America that I have, she continued. Once at Lavigne's residence, Leshikar's family say the friend took Leshikar's phone. Connecting Vets reached out to members of Lavigne's family for comment, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. Delta Force MSG killed at Bragg - SCDUCKS.COM However, documents say that Leshikar's wife Laura spoke with him that day and he sounded lucid to her. The police department promptly fired Matrafailo, who had allegedly done the same to two other alleged rape victims. 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. 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. He transferred to Fort Bragg three years later to attend the JFK Special Warfare School, the completion of which entitles a soldier to wear a coveted green beret. But the warehouse had no plumbing; there was only a portable toilet out back. A spokesman for USASOC tells me that no transcript of the audio recordings of the trial proceedings was ever typed up because Vallejo was acquitted, so there was no possibility of an appeal. The charges were dropped when authorities determined he was not involved in the criminal activity, Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West told The Fayetteville Observer at the time. Nances legal reasoning may have been sound, but it still resulted in a rape counselor providing testimony against her own client at trial, a result that another judge might have bent over backward to avoid. Poppe couldnt recall why that was the case, but conceded that it was somewhat unusual for the main police witness in a criminal trial not to align with the prosecution. I looked at my daddy's face and I knew he was gone, the girl told her family members. Shes troubled by the memory of a night in 2012, when she woke up after having passed out drunk to find a man she knew having sex with her without her consent, she says. Two men found dead at Fort Bragg: Update : This ain't Hell, but you can During this time, and the months to come, Scanlon was represented by an SVC, or special-victims counsel, a military-appointed attorney. 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. I dont think they go around on shooting sprees. Two US servicemen, one who was a member of the elite Delta - Reddit Scanlons SVC her fifth discouraged her from attending, she says. In the event of a terrorist strike, international hostage situation, or loose nuclear weapon, its Delta or Team 6 that the president will call on to respond. A spokeswoman for the FBI confirmed this month that the homicide investigation into the shooting deaths of Master Sgt. At times, she observed their operations on a video feed. His first deployment was to Mali, in 2007. 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. Anecdote, family member was [redacted] group, got recruited to Delta, turned them down. 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. 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. She Asked the Army to Investigate a Rape Trial. They Fired Her Over the course of twenty years and thousands of missions, he's fought desperately for his life, rescued hostages, killed and . Scanlon says the detail initially slipped her memory. Poppe says he take[s] exception to this absurd characterization. William LaVigne II, 37, and Army veteran Timothy Dumas Sr., 44, is. 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. William F. Garrison: Retired Major General. He and Lavigne would talk and argue with one another like they were brothers, Leshikar's sister Nicole Rick recalled in an interview with Connecting Vets. Another struck hit him in his right side. That would have been enough, Poppe argues, to spook Scanlon into making a false accusation of rape, lest word get out and she be reprimanded for fraternization. St. Louis man telling stories of his thousands of 'capture or kill The prosecution did not call Matrafailo, the Fayetteville detective who had investigated Scanlons claim, interviewed witnesses while their memories were fresh, collected evidence before it disappeared, and concluded by arresting Vallejo for second-degree rape. Send us a tip using our anonymous form. A source familiar with Army Special Operations told Connecting Vets that Delta Force operators use proprietary encryption software on their phones for day-to-day work related calls and text messages. Scanlon went to the Fayetteville police the next day. 2023 Audacy, Inc. All rights reserved. Scanlon agonized over what to do next. Vallejo is a notable exception. 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. You get everyone in for a forensic interview, get emails, social media and everything else in the next 48 hours. It is the last house in a quiet cul-de-sac on the backside of a neighborhood about 20 minutes away from Fort Bragg. He also called his mother that night and told her that he and his wife had decided to get alcohol out of their family, and that now he knew what he had to do to start getting clean and putting his life together. He denies that Lavigne was ever into dealing any sort of narcotics. Its hundreds of pages long, but does not include the testimony of witnesses or the arguments the lawyers made. Stateside they lived intense lives, too. The death certificates say the two men were found about 3:30 p.m. Dec. 2, in the woods on Fort Bragg. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time Rick said Lavigne was also in Delta Force. His truck, a black quad-cab Dodge Ram, was found some 40 miles away, in Scotland County, burned to a fucking crisp, according to his 24-year-old son. 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.

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