An ex-Air Force lieutenant colonel from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey faced a court-martial before the military’s top court yesterday.
Former Lt. Col. Norbert King II, previously of the 818th Mobility Support Advisory Squadron, was charged with sexual assault and committing a sexual act upon a minor, according to court documents.
King was found guilty by a panel at his base in Aug. 2018 and was sentenced to three years of confinement and dismissal from the service. His sentence was affirmed by the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals in Aug. 2021 before it was subsequently heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces yesterday.
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The allegations against King stemmed from an incident in Sept. 2016, when he sexually assaulted his 17-year-old daughter at their home. The minor fled to a nearby friend’s house, whose parents called the police. Forensic testing later found male DNA on her clothes that did not exclude King as a suspect.
During the early stages of the case, an individual from the court-martial panel was removed after being selected to attend Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. While prosecutors asserted that the removal was appropriate, King’s defense team decried the move and argued it should warrant reversing King’s conviction and sentence.
This particular case marks only one of several sexual assault court-martial cases the top military court will be hearing this term. Of the 12 cases the court has heard or announced it will hear before the end of the year, eight relate to sexual assault.
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The Department of Defense released its annual sexual assault prevention report last month, which demonstrated how the military’s sexual assault problem has only gotten worse.
The status of when a final decision will be reached in King’s trial is unclear at this time.
Jonathan is a staff writer and editor of the Early Bird Brief newsletter for Military Times. Follow him on Twitter @lehrfeld_media
