Pvt. Travis King on Friday pleaded guilty to desertion and told a military judge that he ran into North Korea last year because he was “dissatisfied with work” and wanted to get away from the Army. (Family Photo)

FORT BLISS, Texas — Pvt. Travis King on Friday was sentenced to one year in prison after pleading guilty to deserting to North Korea. But he walked out of the courtroom a free man.

“With time already served and credit for good behavior, Travis is now free and will return home,” said Frank Rosenblatt, an attorney for the soldier.

Military Judge Lt. Col. Rick Mathew also sentenced King to reduction in rank to E-1 and a dishonorable discharge in a court-martial that lasted most of the day.

During the trial, King, 24, sat in his dress uniform between his attorneys and said it was his decision on July 18, 2023, to join a tour of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea and then bolt into North Korea. The soldier did so because he was “dissatisfied with work,” he told the judge.

King also pleaded guilty to three counts of disobeying an officer on Oct. 7, 2023, and another charge of assaulting a noncommissioned officer the following day. He pleaded not guilty to additional charges related to child sexual abuse material and making false statements. The judge dismissed the remaining charges.

“The outcome of today’s court-martial is a fair and just result that reflects the seriousness of the offenses committed by Pvt. King and will promote good order and discipline within the U.S. Army by deterring soldiers from committing similar offenses in the future,” said Maj. Allyson Montgomery, a prosecutor for the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel.

During the October incident that led to charges, King said he violated an order from his commander in the 6th Squadron of the 1st Cavalry Regiment. He knew based on an earlier counseling session with the captain that he needed to sign out to leave the barracks, was not allowed to drink alcohol or leave Camp Hovey or Camp Casey where he was stationed in South Korea for any reason. He knowingly broke these rules and went to Seoul, where he bought Korean liquor from a corner store and then went to a nightclub where he drank so much tequila he vomited.

After getting into a fight in the nightclub, Korean police arrested King and brought him to a police station. Korean authorities called the Army to collect him. On the roughly one-hour drive from Seoul back to Camp Hovey, King grabbed the arms of a sergeant who was driving the vehicle to try and escape.

“You’ll never take me alive,” Capt. Christopher Deisenroth, a prosecutor, said King shouted as he fought the four other soldiers in the vehicle.

King told the judge that he did all this because he “had no desire to return.”

A mental health evaluation conducted on King prior to the court-martial diagnosed him with mental health conditions, but none so severe that he did not understand his actions in Korea. The evaluation also concluded he was competent to stand trial. King agreed with this when asked by the judge.

Mathew deliberated for nearly an hour before deciding how to sentence King based on the limited options available to him through the plea agreement. The agreement had been negotiated prior to the trial by the Army’s prosecutors and King’s lawyers and had to be accepted by Mathew to move forward.

The deal limited King’s sentence to just one year in prison. The maximum available without that agreement was 20 years.

Mathew did not provide any insight into his decision.

Leading up to his court-martial, King spent 338 days in Otero County Detention Center in nearby Alamogordo, N.M., which he told the court was akin to solitary confinement. Combined with his good behavior, King walked out of the courtroom free.

During sentencing, King’s attorneys painted him as a sympathetic figure who has already endured punishment in life, beginning from his early childhood in government housing where he saw criminal activity and his move later into a group home for teens. King, a Black man, then faced racism in the Army, the public scrutiny of his actions and expects future unsolicited comments from others.

King wrote in a statement about his upbringing in Wisconsin and how he met an Army recruiter in high school who encouraged him to finish his diploma and enlist. Sherilyn Bunn, an attorney for King, read the statement aloud at King’s request.

“I wanted to make people proud of me,” he wrote. “I thought if I was a soldier, I would be somebody.”

Once in the Army, King felt isolated and alone. Those feelings were exacerbated once he deployed on a rotational mission to South Korea. He never felt like he fit in and other soldiers had no problem making fun of his skin color. King wrote other soldiers would tell him that he was the most unathletic Black person they had met or that he should smile because otherwise they couldn’t see him.

“I know I wasn’t always the best or most stellar soldier, but I tried my best,” he wrote.

Prosecutors focused on King’s selfishness in his actions, which caused panic among other tourists at the Demilitarized Zone and impacted the mission of the American and South Korean soldiers working there. Tours to the Demilitarized Zone were temporarily shut down and have now only returned for special visitors. Security measures have also been increased to prevent a similar incident from occurring.

“This was a calculated plan,” Deisenroth said.

Before running into North Korea in July, King had searched online for information about the country and had researched fleeing to other countries such as China, Thailand or Russia. He’d also asked a local taxi driver if he knew how to leave South Korea without a passport, which isn’t required for American service members assigned to the country.

On the day before King deserted, he was scheduled to fly out of South Korea, where he was part of a rotational force from Fort Bliss, Texas. The rest of his unit had already returned from the rotation, but he had stayed behind because of a pending legal issue.

Once his soldier-escort left him at the airport security gate, King told the judge he went to a ticket counter, said he didn’t have a passport and canceled his flight back to Texas. He then called a taxi, got a hotel room and booked himself on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone.

A cellphone video played in court showed King running across the Demilitarized Zone. In it, King can be heard laughing as he takes off. A sergeant who worked on the tour that day said King’s sprint shocked everyone because they’d never anticipated that someone would run from south to north. Typically, security threats go the other way, he said.

King remained in North Korea until Sept. 27, 2023, when he said he was handed over to a Swedish ambassador and taken across a bridge into China. There, he met with American officials and was returned to Army custody. The Army flew King to Joint Base San Antonio in Texas where he was debriefed and evaluated for three weeks before returning to Fort Bliss and then charged and placed into pretrial confinement.

“He has accepted responsibility during today’s court martial — but make no mistake, the negative public perception and the ongoing consequences of his actions, coupled with the confinement he’s endured, represents an ongoing punishment Travis King will endure for the rest of his life,” Rosenblatt said.