Col. William Wright, former director of the Global Information Systems Program at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., was charged for a third time for accusations that he acted inappropriately with cadets and then lied about it during an administrative investigation. The previous two rounds of charges were withdrawn during the court-martial process. (U.S. Army)
A West Point colonel who has had charges dropped twice for drinking with cadets and trying to undermine investigations into his actions now faces a third round of charges for the same accusations.
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., confirmed Col. William Wright is charged again with violating Army policy on trainer-trainee interactions, interfering with an adverse administrative proceeding and making a false official statement.
An arraignment date for the third set of charges was not listed as of Wednesday on the Army’s online court docket. A listing for Wright’s second court-martial shows those charges were dropped Jan. 2. The academy declined to comment on why this occurred.
Aimee Bateman, an attorney who represented Wright, said Tuesday that she did not have a comment about the case.
The colonel is accused of providing alcohol to a cadet and drinking with the student on “a personal social basis” twice in June 2023 — once in Hilo, Hawaii, and again at Fort Greely, Alaska, according to the charge sheet.
Wright, who graduated from West Point in 1999, would travel with cadets as a chaperone for the tennis team as well as for research as part of his work as the director of the academy’s Geospatial Information Science Program, according to his LinkedIn account.
The Army’s public court-martial records database on Wednesday did not include documents from Wright’s previous two cases that ended in a withdrawal of charges. Records typically take months to post, unlike the federal docket and court record system that tracks cases in real time.
Wright was first arraigned June 18 and the charges were dropped on Oct. 18 — just days before he was expected to plead guilty to some or all the charges.
Wright pleaded not guilty Dec. 2 during his second arraignment.
Throughout the legal process, Wright “is present for duty at West Point,” according to a statement from the academy. He has been reassigned and does not have contact with cadets.
The charges filed against him in this third court-martial are unchanged from the second, according to West Point.
Since the first round of charges, prosecutors have dropped the charge of conduct unbecoming of an officer and added a count of interfering with an adverse administrative proceeding.
He now faces three counts of interference alongside three counts of disobeying orders or regulations and two counts of making false statements, according to the charge sheet released after his second arraignment.
Wright is accused of violating an order to stay away from cadets on the women’s tennis team in January 2024 and asking three people to lie in their testimony about drinking during an administrative proceeding. He is also accused of lying twice in his own official statement to a colonel who was investigating the accusations.
All names except Wright’s were redacted from the description of charges against him.
This is Wright’s second time serving as faculty for West Point. From 2008 to 2011, he served as an assistant professor in geospatial information science, according to his LinkedIn account. He then moved to Colorado to work for North American Aerospace Defense Command and later got a doctorate in geomatics from the University of Florida.
