Jonathan J Batt, assigned in Crystal City, Virginia, accused of three charges with 76 specifications of sexual abuse

Summary

Major Batt faces faces rape and sexual assault charges involving 20 victims. The alleged assaults occurred between 2019 and 2023, primarily in the Washington DC area.

The major was deployed to Afghanistan four times and earned two Bronze Star medals for valor.

He is currently in pre-trial confinement but was released after a hearing.

  • Rottcodd@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 month ago

    So as is generally the case with this sort of story, I find myself wondering if he’s such a monster that they can’t sweep it under the rug or if he just happened to piss off the wrong people.

    Sexual assault in the military - like church pedophilia, police brutality and political corruption - is one of those crimes that is deplorably common and almost always ignored. So when they do prosecute someone for it, there has to be something else to it. It can’t just be that he’s thought to be guilty of the crime, since hundreds or even thousands of others are at least as likely guilty of the same crime, and are not even under threat and quite likely never will be. So what’s special about him?

    It’s not really relevant to anything, and it’s certainly not as if he should be spared just because so many others are allowed to get away with it (exactly the opposite in fact - each and every single one of them, without exception, should face the full force of the law, and the fact that so many don’t is a prime example of why and how this country is going to shit).

    Still though, I find myself wondering, as I often do.