Army Pvt. Travis King is charged with desertion for bolting into North Korea while on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone in July 2023, a day after he was supposed to travel to Fort Bliss, Texas. (Family Photo via AP)
A Fort Bliss soldier will plead guilty to desertion during his first court appearance next month for running into North Korea last year, according to the soldier’s attorney.
Pvt. Travis King, 24, will take responsibility for deserting and enter a guilty plea, said Frank Rosenblatt, an attorney representing King. In July 2023, King sprinted across the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea, where he remained until U.S. officials were able to negotiate his release in September. He was part of a rotational force from Fort Bliss, Texas, working in South Korea at the time.
Of the 14 offenses of which King is accused, the attorney said he will plead guilty to five. The remaining charges will be withdrawn and dismissed by the Army.
Aside from desertion, King will plead guilty to assaulting a noncommissioned officer and disobeying an officer on three occasions. The remaining charges involved accusations of soliciting and possessing child sexual abuse material.
The Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel, which is prosecuting the case, confirmed a plea agreement has been reached, but the judge must accept it for it to be complete. An arraignment and hearing are scheduled for Sept. 20 at Fort Bliss with military judge Lt. Col. Rick Mathew.
“If Pvt. King’s guilty plea is accepted, the judge will sentence King pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement. If the judge does not accept the guilty plea, the judge can rule that the case be litigated in a contested court-martial,” said Michelle McCaskill, spokeswoman for the Office of Special Trial Counsel.
During this hearing, King will explain what he did and answer the judge’s questions about why he is pleading guilty, Rosenblatt said.
“Travis is grateful to his friends and family who have supported him, and to all outside of his circle who did not prejudge his case based on the initial allegations,” he said.
Since the charges against King were announced in October, the soldier has been detained at the Otero County Detention Center in nearby Alamogordo, N.M. He will remain in pretrial confinement, McCaskill said.
He also had a mental competency evaluation conducted by a team from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Rosenblatt said.
King first enlisted in the Army in January 2021 as a cavalry scout and had no prior deployments. He was in Korea as part of a rotational deployment with the 6th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, according to the Army.
He was scheduled to return in July 2023 to Fort Bliss, where he was supposed to face disciplinary hearings with the Army, but instead of boarding his flight, he made his way to a tour of the Demilitarized Zone. During that tour, he sprinted across the border from South Korea into North Korea.
State-run media in North Korea reported last year that King told officials that he fled the U.S. because he was “disillusioned at the unequal American society” and he wished to seek refuge in North Korea or a third country.
The Swedish government served a diplomatic role in securing King’s release and China assisted with safe transit out of North Korea for the soldier, according to the Defense Department. He arrived back in the U.S. in September.
